talk about hyperbole!!!

In chapters 6 and 7 of Voltaire's Candide, Voltaire shows much exaggeration, or hyperbole towards the characters. Just like many teachers show towards their students, exaggeration of any type is bad. Good exaggeration, such as picking favorites, can cause harm to the direct person by making him or her become conceded and even sometimes lazy. It also hurts the people around the student. it may cause them to be jealous, or it may hurt them inside because they may feel that they are inferior to that person. On the other hand, bad exaggeration can be horrid! If someone ever shows a bad feeling towards you, depending on their position of power, it can be dreadful or just not nice. In the case of Candide, the Portuguese officers show much hyperbole in the sense that they kill random people just because they think it will make the world safer. Because of the recent and deadly earthquake, the officers choose certain people whom they find are different or contradict their beliefs, and they kill them. Pangloss was one of these men who was killed. They murdered him because of his outspoken opinions and they persecute Candide for being his friend and not disagreeing with him.

Candide soon changes his perspective of life. Pangloss had changed it once before to a very optimistic view, and now that he was killed, Candide had no one to reinforce this way of thought. He returned to his original ways and thought of the earthquake and other things as negative and not just as "the best of both worlds." Ironically, soon there after, a strange woman finds Candide and takes care of him just as he had done for Pangloss. After she does this, she takes him to meet his real benefactor Conegounde.