“Religion, Politics and Morals” How did Voltaire exploit the premodern era through mockery and criticism of 18th century society? Voltaire's Candide can be understood in several ways by its audience. At first glance, this appears to be simply a story blessed with outrageous creativity, but if you look deeper into the novel, a more complex and meaningful message is buried within. Voltaire uses Candide's adventures as a representation of what he personally feels is a problem in society. Written in the 18th century (1759), commonly referred to as the Age of Enlightenment, Voltaire forces his audience to consider the shift from tradition to freedom within society. He achieves this by exploring the reality of human suffering due to the traditions he mocks throughout Candide. In particular, he focused on the exploitation of corruption which he believed was heavily and unfairly present in three main aspects of society, namely religion, politics and morality. Each chapter represents the different ways in which Voltaire believes in the existence of corruption, providing the audience with the reality of society's problems due to its fixation on tradition. As an Enlightenment philosopher, Voltaire advocated freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the separation of church and state. Voltaire successfully presents these ideas in Candide, highlighting why they were an important problem in 18th-century Europe. Each chapter of Candide is a part of the story in which Voltaire carefully expresses his concerns and criticisms of 18th-century society. Chapter 11 “The Old Wives’ Story” particularly criticizes the pre-modern era in matters of religion. The Enlightenment period called for freedom of religion from many philosophers... middle of paper ... where he saw a gallery two thousand feet long, filled with various devices in mathematics and natural philosophy. (Candide, chapter 18). This shows how Voltaire, as an Enlightenment philosopher, believed that a movement had to move away from tradition and towards science so that society would progress and anything that was wrong could be corrected. El Dorado has some aspects of a society that Voltaire would like to see in the near future. Overall, Voltaire was successful in promoting his ideas and beliefs. It is clear that he wishes to see a radical change in religion, politics, and morality in the premodern period. Throughout his novel Candide, he is able to criticize society with light mockery but also seriously by using extreme examples to address his arguments and concerns. Arguably his ambitions were far too high in a time of hope and debate in the 18th century..