Voltaire uses Candide as a tool to express that one must take a position in between optimism and pessimism through representations of optimism, pessimism, and a state of philosophy in between. Through embodiments of these qualities, Voltaire clearly distinguishes his opinion on the church, atheism, and uncertainty. The bodies in which these philosophies take shape in are Pangloss as optimism, Martin and the world as pessimism, and Candide as the uncertainty. This uncertainty is also a representation of a person entering the world for the very first time, as John Locke had called it, Tabla Rasa, or blank slate. As Candide strolls through the world, he is influenced by both optimism and pessimism being pulled back and forth.
As the story begins, Candide is expelled from his earthly paradise for kissing the daughter of the baron, who owned this heaven on earth. This marked the point when Candide entered into the real world, where one cannot do nothing and expect to survive. At this point, Candide is pitted into his first struggle between optimism and pessimism. He had just lost everything he held dear in his heart, including his teacher Pangloss, who was his main source of optimism. Pangloss believed that this was the "best of all possible worlds- and that the world was destined to fulfill God's divine plan for it (18). He struggles with himself to keep his eyes on the good things he still had, but his faith in this philosophy was obviously wavering due to the fact that he was weeping and looking toward the sky as if asking God why (19). Since Martin had not yet come into the picture yet, the world acted as his source of pessimism here. Candide struggles with the first battle between which philosophies to believe. Every time he would look up at the sky and weep, he would start to question if this is truthfully the "best of all possible worlds-, but every time he would look back at the place in which he once lived, he would be reminded of what once was his, which sparked memories of optimism and rekindled hope.