up fighting and killing him (362). Page 05 The grand underlying theme to both of these stories can be put as, “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Both Moliere and Voltaire do so well in laying down their irony. In Tartuffe, Orgon is so concerned with Tartuffe’s well being, he simply skips over the news of his wife’s terrible fever and recent illness (22). He also takes back his word of honor when he explains to his daughter Mariane she will not marry her fiance Valere but rather Tartuffe (31). It is this behavior towards his family that stings Orgon at the end of the story. Ironically, it was his pestering and bothersome family who he should have concerned himself with; they were the truth speakers. His own mother says, “Appearances can deceive, my son. Dear me, we cannot always judge by what we see” (60). He learned that he should not have been so eager to accept Tartuffe as God. In Candide, Candide is so concerned with being with Cunegonde again, he ignored the king of El Dorado’s advice to stay there in the land of paradise (369). Choices like this that he made lead him to his inevitable future. He would find Cunegonde, but she will be very different from whom he was actually pursuing. His image of Cunegonde deceived him at the end of the story as well. Both Moliere and Voltaire criticize mankind’s innate nature. They set forth two bumbling men for the reader to laugh at. It seems that no matter of time can save man from what he will always be. There seems to be a cyclical nature here. Man is either deceiving or deceived. As the time period these two men lived has spanned over seventy years, and as this perception seems to hold true today, it is safe to assume it will hold true for a long while to come. The authors must have written the...
