SIGNALS OF IRONY IN VOLTAIRE’S CANDIDE

Abstract

In the first instance, the present study takes into consideration the main features of irony and defines it as a particular type of communication, as an instrument in the fight against social injustice and as a way to awaken the light of human minds. Also, starting from the premise that the signals of irony aren't universal but fundamentally attached to the writer's style itself, i.e. to his ethical sensibility and his vision of the world, we offer in this article an overview of Voltaire's ironic conscience and the very means by which the writer expresses it in Candide. In other words, the principal focus of our study is on the stylistic features of the text which hide a certain effect of irony and which are used by Voltaire in order to criticize many segments of society of his time and, in turn, humankind as a whole.