Nature and Love in Sab and Candide

 

 

In looking at the last two books we have read, I find the style of writing in Sab to evoke quite a different reader reaction from the style of Candide.  Without knowing much about romantic literature, Sab fits the stereotype of a romantic piece, full of flowery descriptions of nature and emotional passages brimming over with passion and tears.  The style of Candide, by contrast, is very matter of fact, even understated, in describing the most horrific events in the story which the hero has to endure before finding the secret to life.

We see Sab’s unrequited love for Carlota described in subjective and poignant terms.  As Sab himself says in the letter he leaves to Teresa, “Love soon had exclusive hold over my heart”, and “I would have won Carlota at the price of a thousand heroic deeds” (Avellaneda 142).  The scenes of nature, especially the tropical storms that develop, are particularly well developed by the author.  When Sab and Enrique leave for Puerto Príncipe as a storm approaches, against Carlota’s wishes, the author describes the scene by saying “The heavens opened, spewing fire through innumerable openings” (Avellaneda 50). 

But in Candid the events are described in such an understated, simple way that it almost seems funny the author could be talking about such terrible events.  When his teacher, Dr. Pangloss, is hanged, Voltaire, in a matter-of-fact tone, states “the Biscayner, and the two men who had refused to eat bacon, were burnt, and Pangloss was hanged, though that was not the custom” (Voltaire 13). What understatement!  We see no emotion expressed nor outrage at the event, but just the comment “The same day the earth sustained a most violent concussion” (Voltaire 13).  While this last statement does indicate nature’s disapproval of the deaths of the three men, it is certainly not like the violent storms depicted in such detail in Sab.  Even when Candide is separated from his beloved Cunegonde in South America, he only manages to say “What shall we do without Cunegonde?” to his servant (Voltaire 32). This is certainly not the level of passion exhibited by Sab in his burning love of Carlota. 

The comparison that comes to mind is the difference between Beethoven’s Apassionata Sonata and Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.  The emotion that the Romantic writer/composer is able to evoke has more raw emotion in it, while the pleasure of the classical musical style or Voltaire’s Enlightenment writing seems more cerebral.