Civilization in Aeschylus The Orchesteia and Voltaires Candide Essay

Man’s continual search for a perfect civilization attributes the history of human progress. From Plato to Locke to Marx, man has always sought to order society to provide justice for himself and for his children. In this everlasting quest for perfection and utopia, many writers have suffered the penalties of imprisonment, exile, or even death. In time, most critical writers learned that in order to avoid such brushes with the authorities, they must use imagination, sarcasm and irony, as in satire, and/or use aliases so that their identity remains undisclosed. In both Aeschylus' The Oresteia and in Voltaire’s Candide, human civilization is viewed as an imperfect balance of opposites, which helps fight against man's tendencies toward barbarism and inhumanity. Aeschylus’ tragic trilogy, the only play to survive from Ancient Greece, repeatedly calls our attention upon a central concept of justice: justice as revenge. This is a relatively simple concept, with a powerful emotional appeal, linking vengeance to the family and their feelings for each other and for their collective honor. However, one must look past this superficial theme in order to fully appreciate and understand the depth and beauty of Aeschylus’ work, and regard it as a philosophical investigation into the concepts of justice rather than a great artistic fiction or a poetic exploration. The former approach is unfortunate because the Oresteia is not a rational argument. It is, on the other hand, an artistic exploration of abstract and theoretical issues. What matters in this case is the complexity of the feeling that emerges from the characters, the imagery, the actions, and the ideas in the story. In other words, the writer is dealing with a case of how human bei... ...th of its characters. For Aeschylus, successful civilization defines itself not by complete devotion to Fate or the gods, instead, society forms "the ultimate product of conflict between opposing forces" in which violence and antisocial behaviour are repressed through a "hierarchization of values". Candide addresses issues about human nature that other stories might choose to ignore, such as optimism, as well as religion and state. These elements give such an insight and a perspective that most readers do not usually get in every day literature. Whereas highly controversial, Voltaire always writes from an honest point of view. He never tries to be politically correct – he tells it like it is or at least the way he perceives them to be. Not only does Voltaire address the ignorance of mankind, but also directly challenges the integrity of the church and state.