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Similes
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Christopher Columbus:
Voltaire makes various allusions to the New World in a passage in which Professor Pangloss explains that his syphilis infection originated in Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the Americas. The passage is also an example of situational irony:
“[It] was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not in an island of America caught this disease, which contaminates the source of life, frequently even hinders generation, and which is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have neither chocolate nor cochineal. We are also to observe that upon our continent, this distemper is like religious controversy, confined to a particular spot. The Turks, the Indians, the Persians, the Chinese, the Siamese, the Japanese, know nothing of it [...]
Here, Voltaire alludes to Columbus, whose famous 1492 voyage to the Americas initiated the Age of Exploration, with complex and far-reaching consequences both for Europe and the New World. Pangloss explains that the introduction of syphilis to Europe does not contradict his belief that Earth is “the best of all possible worlds,” as Columbus’ voyage also brought chocolate and cochineal to Europe. Here, Voltaire alludes to two of the most famous and valuable goods transported from the New World across the Atlantic: chocolate and Cochineal, a red dye made from crushing small insects that live on cacti in Mexico. There is a strong sense of irony to this scene, as these goods do not seem to justify the introduction of an illness that “contaminates the source of life” in afflicting the genitalia of men and women.
Related Themes:
