View's of Education in Voltaire's Candide and Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave - Essay Example

John Q. Doe English 344 8 May 2000 Views of Education in Voltaire’s Candide and Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Though Francois-Marie Voltaire’s Candide, or Optimism and Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave come from two different genres of literature, fiction and nonfiction respectively, both works make extensively developed statements about societal issues. In Candide, Voltaire presents a critique of the hypocrisy of Enlightenment Age European society using the technique of satire.

Frederick Douglass’ work, by contrast, presents a critique of slavery era American society through the technique of autobiography. However, an issue that both of these works address is the role and importance of education in society. Voltaire, at the end of his novel, espouses the idea that education only serves to make life a miserable affair. Douglass, after initially learning to read and write, believes that knowledge leads to sorrow as well, but his view changes after his intellectual abilities lead him to freedom.

Through the protagonist, Candide, Voltaire endorses the ethic of hard work over education and philosophy as a method for happiness in life. Throughout the journeys that form the bulk of Candide, the characters who engage in deep learning and philosophical debate all suffer as a result. The greatest example is the supposedly learned and scholarly Pangloss who suffers the disease of syphilis, allows an Anabaptist to drown based on a faulty philosophical argument, and allows his pupil to suffer under rubble while trying to prove the cause of the earthquake.

Candide also suffers by making his journey of education as he encounters various disturbing people and events. But, during the closing scene of the novel, the characters that have joined Candide on his adventure settle at an old farm and abandon their philosophical journey. At this farm, Candide rejects the belief that the greatest achievements of man are scholarly. Instead, he embraces an ethic of work over idle speculation and thought. As his companion Martin states, “Let’s work without speculating . . .

it’s the only way of rendering life bearable” (Voltaire 402). Shortly after this statement, the characters begin philosophizing again, but Candide quickly corrects them to cultivate the garden. The path to happiness lies in hard work and not idle conversation and moral debate. While addressing the issue of education in the story of his journey from slave to freeman, Frederick Douglass, as Candide does at the end of his narrative, first believes that learning brings sorrow, but after an important experience, he changes his view.

At the age of seven, Douglass is sent to serve the Auld family. There, Douglass has his first experiences with education. Slave-owners in America did not allow slaves to learn reading or writing on the belief that the slaves would rebel. However, his new owner, Sophia Auld treats him kindly and teaches him the alphabet. Eventually, her husband forces her to stop educating Douglass, but Frederick is able to learn reading and writing from the local Baltimore boys near the Auld household. After he first learns to read, he obtains a book with a speech by Thomas Sheridan on Catholic emancipation.

As he reads, he begins to “abhor and detest [his] enslavers” (Douglass 746). As he contemplates his position as a slave, he hates that he has learned to read. He envies those with no education because they are unaware of the horrible “condition that torment[s] [him]” (746). However, after learning and reading more, he discovers the abolitionist movement and the process of becoming a free man. He exploits this knowledge to gain his freedom and comes to regard education as the means of escaping the bondage of slavery.

In the end, he is glad of his education and his freedom from the difficult work of a slave. Essentially, the views on education presented in the two works are reversals of one another. Candide begins the novel as a student of the philosopher, Pangloss. After all his experience with education, Candide rejects it for a code of hard work as the road to happiness. Meanwhile, Frederick Douglass begins his narrative lacking any education and working extremely hard against his will as a slave. His first tastes of education are bitter as they only inform him of his deep suffering.

However, after learning and reading, Douglass comes to regard education as a means of escape from the horror of slavery. He abandons an ethic of hard labor and embraces an ethic of education. Works Cited Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, Volume 2. Ed. Maynard Mack. 6th. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1992. 727-89. Print. Voltaire, Francois-Marie. Candide, or Optimism. Trans. Robert M. Adams.

The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, Volume 2. Ed. Maynard Mack. 6th. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1992. 336-402. Print.