220;if we believe in a creator, then he must be a good creator and the greatest of all possible creators and therefore could have only created the best of all possible worlds.” People believed that whatever happened was for the best, but the devastating earthquake of 1755 in Lisbon, Portugal provoked Voltaire into lashing out and writing Candide. (Leonard Bernstein: “Candide”)Voltaire’s book is about a character named Candide. He sets out on a journey to test this proposition of this being the best of all possible worlds, and suffers so much misfortune that he ultimately rejects the common philosophy. He claims that there is far too much deliberate evil on the part of human beings for anyone to believe that this can be the best of all possible worlds. In 1759 the book was publicly burnt in Geneva and banned in Paris and three years later the Vatican put it on the Index of prohibited readings. (Gradenwitz 1987: 179)After the books publication, thirteen other editions were published and by the time of Voltaire’s death, there were forty editions. Candide’s message to humanity that the world always has catastrophes in store has never lost its significance as seen today. This held a mirror up to people’s faces for them to wake up to the realities of the world and a message that first attracted Leonard Bernstein to the work. (Gradenwitz 1987: 179)Lillian Hellman chose to adapt Candide around a period in the 1950’s that was two hundred years after the Lisbon earthquake and the time of McCarthyism. This was a time when everything America seemed to stand for was ground under the heal of the Junior Senator Joseph McCarthy. It was a time of television censorship, lost jobs, suicides and denial of passports for citizens. It seems as though she was fueled to go against the system as Candide did in the book and wanted to adapt this for the public audience to see and wake up to what was going on...
