Question

III. Rousseau
1. What is the similarity between Voltaire’s Candide and Rousseau’s Confessions in terms of the
characters described in their works?
2. According to the “Introduction” to Rousseau, what is the difference between Rousseau and
Montaigne?
3. What is the career of the narrator (the character “I”)’s father in Rousseau’s Confessions? How
do his parents meet up and interact with each other before their marriage?
4. What happened after the narrator was born? How does his father react to that?
5. How do the people in the narrator’s family treat his older brother, and what does this
treatment affect him? How is this treatment different from the treatment the people do with
the narrator? How is he (the narrator) shaped by this treatment?
6. What happens to the narrator when he is a boy at the age of 8, and what is the result of this
situation? How does he become cynical?
7. What are the two contrasted characteristics the narrator feels inside of him when he thinks
of his own personality? What is his activity affected by them?
8. What does the narrator do in an inn on his way to Lausanne? How does the inn owner treat
him? Whom does he meet when he approaches Lausanne? How does this man treat him?

9. How does the narrator describe his feeling of uncertainty in his mind? What is the action he
uses to test his feeling one day when he is having meditation on this subject?

Answer 1

Answer:

1. Though Voltaire's Candide and Rousseau's has various personal differences they also have some similarities they are against absolute monarchy and they hated absolute Christianity.
2. Rousseau believed that we need to voice out the opinions and encourages to question foundational concepts , while montaige believes that certain specific elements of the society to be questioned.
3. The narrator's father never came in person in the story. he feared his Jewish identity would make troubles to his son.
4. The narrator's father was very proud of his music talents and academic achievements.
5. the narrator felt very bad when he is treated different from his older brother.
6. The narrator feels two contrasted character inside him. one is shy, awkward and uncertain.
7. The narrator's dual personality made the owner treat him like a mentally detoured person.
8. The narrator felt uncertainty, shy, awkwardness and fear in his mind.