An Active Choice

What is poetry? I think poetry is what you make of it. Yes, there are certain literary devices found in poetry and you can't just make up any crazy meaning you want for a poem, but a lot of what poetry is comes from within. Unlike all prose, all poetry is supposed to make you feel something. When you're done reading a poem you shouldn't feel neutral. Of course sometimes you do and that's simply a sign of a bad connection with the speaker. People read poetry for numerous reasons. It can be calming, it can be happy, it can even be tragic. All of these are emotions. People want to feel when they read. Sometimes people are forced to read poetry and this is when you're least likely to actually gain anything from the works. It is an active decision to read poetry. You cannot passively read a poem and expect for you to receive anything in return. You have to give something back. You have to let your walls down and hand over a vulnerable side of yourself. Poetry touches on raw emotions. You need to be open to these emotions, good or bad, for poetry to have a lasting impact on you. This is what makes poetry so valuable. In today's society, we too often find ourselves loosing our emotions to social networking. You can tweet "so so so excited" while sitting there and feeling nothing at all. We reply to texts with an "lol" or "hahahaha" when expected not when we actually find it funny, the world is slowly losing real, raw emotion. Poetry, when a reader allows it to, gives it back to us. 

Satirical Tools

Candide has a very whimsical and lighthearted feeling to it. However, this feeling and mood is starkly different than the actual happenings in the novel. Candide is very dark and twisted when you look only at the events that occur throughout the story. I think that Voltaire uses a lighthearted approach to discuss terrible things as a satirical tool. It makes the writing almost more sarcastic and makes it clearer he is mocking something. Voltaire also uses exaggeration and incongruity throughout the novel. I believe that exaggeration is the most effective of the three. It is obvious that Candide should be dead and a few of the characters have already died and then found a way to come back to life. The exaggeration of everyone's life story makes it obvious to readers that this is a satirical piece. The exaggeration forces reader to re-examine the philosophy of optimism presented by Panglossian and Candide. It makes you question how reasonable it actually is

For Better or for Worse

Candide has grown up his entire life being told that everything happens for a reason in this best possible of all worlds. To be completely honest I find that there is some truth to this statement, at least in my own opinion. However, there is one major difference that sets my belief aside from Candide’s and his tutor Pangloss’s. I believe that everything happens for a reason, but that not all those reasons are for the best. The human life is filled with actions and consequences. While the word “consequence” usually carries a negative connotation with it, I use it in this case simply to describe a result that has occurred from a previous action. The novel Candide is a series of actions and consequences. Candide does a series of questionable actions, like killing a man or two (or really three), and each of these actions are met with some sort of result. The most common consequence is that Candide is forced to run around the entire world away from someone or something. It’s an important lesson in anyone’s life: if you kill a man, you will be chased down. Or if we are looking at the overall picture here: If you do something wrong, there will be repercussions. Pangloss always told Candide that everything that happens has a positive side to it. While this would be a nice philosophy in an entirely utopian society, I can’t seem to entirely wrap my head around it. Yes, things happen for a reason, but sometimes they happen for the worse, not the better.