La Raison d'être

The reason as to why Voltaire wrote Candide is simple, he was mad. The nature of satire, as in most of literature and art, lies in feelings. Therefore, to write a work of satire shows sense and sensibility.

The fictitious component of the book consists solely on the characters, the town of Westphalia and the castle of Thunder-ten-Tronckh.
The rest nevertheless is all true.

The earthquake of Lisbon in 1755

Leibniz's Monadology,

The Seven Years' War,

Prostitution,

The Inquisition,

South American Colonies,

Etc.

Voltaire felt strongly about those events. To think we live in the best of all possible worlds when thousands are dying, or starving, or raped is just senseless.

Satirical writing is a punch bag for the enraged author, if the author is blinded or not by his fury is irrelevant, because satire is not impartial; it’s supposed to express sincere, individual opinion. This book review of Candide from the year 1759, shows the reception of the book wasn’t as it is today. The reviewer concentrated on minimal details, while completely skipping the point of the book.

The little sentence that ends the book, the one about working on the garden is what ties up the entire work.

Voltaire is not an optimist, nor a pessimist; in fact when he says “but we must go and work in the garden” he is criticizing the entire notion of having a life philosophy.

The message of Candide is to work to make things work, work to keep boredom, vice, and poverty away. To work in the garden means to reject ignorance, to inquire, to use our free will for our own benefit.

Voltaire is a defender of life. But he is not naïve, and he teaches in the book to face issues because they will continue coming, regardless of what we think, regardless of what we say.