El Dorado The Voltarian Utopia

As I was reading through chapter eighteen of Candide I began to reflect on “El Dorado”.The first thing that came to my mind was El Dorado international airport or otherwise known as the ugliest airport in the world. Man I just cant stand that rusty motel like sign that all of our tourist see when they arrive to the country.

Then I was reminded of the Movie “The Road To El Dorado” Its a short cartoon movie about two guys named Tulio and Miguel who want to find the lost city. Eventually they do find the City. What I have found interesting is that both the movie and Voltaire portray El Dorado as a utopia. In the movie the two main characters are thought to be Gods therefore treated as if as thought they were. At the end of the movie Hernan Cortes the famous “conquistador” tries to invade the city but fails. Tulio and Miguel, who wanted to extract all of the gold from El dorado and take it back to spain, end up not doing so.This is interesting because Miguel and Tulio thought el Dorado was so perfect that they decided to leave it the way it was rather than taking all the gold away form the city.This compares to Candide  because both in the movie and in the book they talk about El Dorado as a utopia.

A I kept on analyzing Voltaire's el Dorado and the Movie,I became certain that they were both Utopias. Then I asked myself, why is Voltaire making fun of south America? Why would  a french man criticize South America? Then it became evident to me that Voltaire wasn't making fun of South America but of this idea of a perfect world. All throughout the book, characters have to suffer and suffer and they are told that its all for the best. In el Dorado people live up to a hundred years; they have no worries and they live a calm and great life. El Dorado was only a legend, it didn't actually exist and that is what Voltaire is trying to say; that there is no such thing as a Utopia it is simply a vague and vague legend that a perfect world exists just like el dorado.