Church officials are depicted as being the most sinful of all characters: greedy, brutal and vicious. His descriptions of the clergy and religious conflicts provide the best illustration of his ideas. The author satirizes French government establishments, religious dogmas, popular philosophical ideas, and almost all social institutions of that time. Faced with all kinds of suffering throughout his journey, Candide finally gives up on the Leibnizian principle of all being “for the best” in “the best of all possible worlds.” He describes the world as being full of misery and injustice, and the people in power as the primary source of evil. In his novel, Voltaire criticizes the principles that the 18 th-century society is built upon by ridiculing and exaggerating the vices of the society, individuals, and institutions. This contradiction manifested itself in the belief that individuals that are equal on their nature are joined together in a society consisting of groups that are unequal in their rights. Second, that the society is governed by positive laws that establish the right social order and the superiority of some classes over the others. The underlying social principle was formed by two contradictory ideas: first, that all people are equal and the natural rights and freedoms are bestowed equally on every individual. The 18-th century French society was divided into three orders: nobility, clergy, and commoners, with the power shared between the two privileged orders and the King above them.

Voltaires candide