Eldorado Passage 2

● Voltaire uses reversal and irony to show how greed makes it impossible for
society to reach a perfect utopia.
● Reversal- where Candide and Cacambo are from, only kings would have the
amount of riches they see the children on the street playing with. Here in El
dorado, the common people all have precious stones and riches.
○ This is to show how the people in El dorado, which represents a utopia,
don’t assign value to the material things that Europeans do
● Situational irony- Candide and Cacambo assume these are the children of kings,
and that the stones they are playing with have value. In fact, the children are just
normal people (described as urchins) and the precious stones don’t have value in
el dorado.
● Greed causes problems for Candide throughout the book, stolen jewels trace him
and Cunegonde back to the murder of the inquisitor