Everything Happens For A Reason

The cliché says that “Everything happens for a reason.” (Everybody), parents tell you that, friends tell you that, teachers tell you that, and even Voltaire tells you that. You fall days before a competition and break a leg, the car’s tire gets pinched in your way to a party, you get splashed by a car when you are wearing a dress for an important even, you get sick before a trip, etc. They tell you when you are screaming in fury or crying in sadness that “everything happens for a reason” that’s why one should not be worried, but glad that it happened. Sometimes you later realize that it is true, or not. Do you believe in it? I do.

Candide has been going through a series of unfortunate events ever since he was born. He didn’t know who him mother was, some claimed that, “he was the son of the Baron’s sister” (pg. 19) but no one is sure, and his father he didn’t know either, only that he was supposedly from the same neighborhood. But thanks to that, he lives with the Baron and all his commodities, and he meets Pangloss, the tutor of the Baron’s son and he also meets Lady Cunégonde, by whom he falls in love. Candide kisses her behind the screen and because the Baron was passing by he kicked Candide out. Because of that he is then taken to the army, when then he is flogged and finally meets his so beloved tutor Pangloss again! Because of that they later are recruited for a voyage to Lisbon. A storm catches them in Lisbon, making half of the passengers to die, but him, Pangloss and another sailor. That leads them to the village of Coimbra and are taken under arrest “one for speaking and the other for listening with an air of approval.” (pg. 36). Pangloss is hanged and Candide is saved by an old woman of the multitude. This old woman takes him to his beloved Lady Cunégonde, who Candide believed as dead.

If after that you don’t believe that everything happens for a reason. You are in trouble.