Voltaire's primary purpose in writing Candide was to demolish the theory of Optimism, and for this purpose exaggeration served him best. He opposed gross absurdity with absurdity — the doctrine repeatedly voiced by Pangloss and echoed by his disciples versus the conclusions to be drawn from the fantastic experiences which are recorded. Candide is driven from what for him and others at the baron's castle was "the best of all possible worlds." The carnage of the Bulgar-Abar conflict, the tempest and earthquake, the apparent death of Cunégonde and the actual death of her parents, the experiences during the Inquisition — these and all other salient events are described in exaggerated terms.
The superlative is dominant from the very beginning. Life at the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh is utopian, a life of perfect happiness. It is a "most beautiful castle." Candide is introduced as the "gentlest of characters" who combined rather sound judgment with great simplicity of mind. The baron is a great, powerful lord in Westphalia; the baroness is the best of all possible baronesses; Cunégonde is the perfect beauty. Pangloss is presented as an oracle, the wisest philosopher in the realm. Already the absurd is opposed to the absurd. We learn that this most beautiful and agreeable of all possible castles, as Voltaire calls it in the last sentence in the chapter, is crude enough, what with its one door and window and its one tapestry. The baroness is obese; the baron obviously a primitive character. But all this exaggeration, all the superlatives prepare the reader for the dire events which are to follow. Similarly in the account of that never-never land, Eldorado, and the description of Don Issachar's residence in the woods, with its spacious gardens and magnificent appointments, Voltaire again used exaggeration as a prelude to adverse fortune.
