Hell no! His punishments do not fit the crime. The Constitutional amendment that says that you are protected from cruel and unusual punishments should have been applied to Candide, because he got his ass whooped more than what should have been. First, he tries to kiss a girl and gets kicked out of a castle because his family is missing one courting? Well, that sucks, but he did try to hit on the his daughter so whatever.
Next he joins the army and goes for a walk. So maybe he should do some push ups or ran a couple laps for going for a walk, right? Nope! They make him run the gaunlet TWICE and he gets all the skin ripped off his body. For what? For taking a stroll on a nice day. And the worst part is that they were going to take his life if he didn't get lucky with meeting that king. Really? The death penalty for a walk! This punishment definitly did not fir the punishment to any degree.
The next time he got punished, he had just survived a shipwreck and was with his man, Pangloss. The natives decide its a good idea to sacrifice people to stop earthquakes. So they kill his mentor and publicly flog him for “listening with an air of approval". REALLY? Candide's life SUCKS, he gets such physical damage for actions that don't even warrant them. Do the punishments fit the crimes? HELL NO.
True, they dont. But that is the point of the book. Its supposed to put Candide in extreme situations for simple things. Like they used to do back in the way, kill people for speaking to the King wrong.
ReplyDeletei agree... Candides punishments were outrageous.
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