Voltaire's Candide is a satire of many of the ideas that controlled the lives of men during
             the Enlightenment. Though it is thought to be one of the Enlightenment's greatest texts, it
             establishes that the Enlightenment was not concrete. Using unique and interesting
             characters, Voltaire personified and criticized many social problems of the day including
             the Clergy and organized religion, the Nobility and Philosophy.
             The Enlightenment, climaxing in the eighteenth century, caused many to criticize
             social conditions and traditions. Enlightenment philosophers directed much of their
             attention toward the aristocracy and the church. Voltaire used Candide to illustrate the
             foremost matters of the Enlightenment as well as criticize the movement itself. It criticizes
             the philosophy that rational thought can stop the pervasiveness of human evil. In Candide,
             Voltaire illustrates that society can and should be changed for the better.
             Beginning in Chapter I, Voltaire's satire mocks the pretentiousness of the nobility.
             Candide's benefactor and uncle, the Baron of Thunder-ten-trockh, is wasteful and served
             by others. His only justification for his status is "birth." This character criticizes the
             audacity and arrogance of the nobility, as well as the thought that one is anointed with
             nobility upon being born. In addition, Candide's own mother, the Baron's sister, refuses to
             marry Candide's father because he could not prove a more "noble" lineage than she.
             Voltaire uses her character to mock a social arrangement that uses an artificial hierarchy.
             There is no difference between common and noble.
             Pangloss is a parody of philosophers who debate but cause no real social change.
             His character is a satire of metaphysics which was forgotten to seek the study of
             knowledge. He talks about the ways of the world but knows little because of his
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