The Enlightenment era from sixteenth to eighteenth century is known for its progressive innovation on independent thinking, pursuit of personal success, and the complete separation from church and absolutism. In Hogarth’s Marriage a la Mode and Voltaire’s Candide, they unveil the selfishness in human nature, and the insatiable pursuit for prestige, wealth and power within an Enlightened world.  Brutally, their works mock the perfect view of society of Enlightenment worldview: although people enjoy greater freedom and equality of getting what they want, they start becoming egoistic and self-conscious regarding their self interest. Unlike the luxuriously corrupted lifestyle depicted in Hogarth’s painting, Marriage a la Mode, Voltaire’s Candide focuses on the shift from rich to poverty, and the ideal philosophical thinking to a cruel reality.

                   In Hogarth’s Marriage a la Mode,  The Marriage Transaction shows a typical calculation for mutual benefit in an arranged marriage of a son of bankrupt Earl Squanderfield and a daughter of wealthy merchant(Fiero 315). A matrimonial union that was considered to be sacred in the past is now being treated as a financial business. Therefore, the amount of  dowry may be the only matter that concerns the parents rather than their children’s true happiness in marriage. In The Marriage Transaction, the three men who sit on the center catch more attention from us than the couple, who sit on the corner and face away from each other. Ironically, these three men on the center are negotiating over the financial terms in a business-like manner, as though treating marriage as a trade for money, prestige and power. On the right corner, a bride-to-be is listening attentively to a lawyer, Lord Silvertongue, while her future husband is becoming obsessed with his dreamy reflection in the mirror (315). Unlike the solemnity shown in a traditional marriage arrangement, Hogarth’s The Marriage Transaction conveys the indifference of this couple toward each other, and their parents' intent concentration on their financial exchange. This painting demonstrates the reality of an arranged marriage in Enlightenment period, which can be viewed as the golden era for the exchange of wealth and pursuit of prestige.

               In Candide, the mutual relationship also builds upon the personal profit rather than love and mutual obligation. Voltaire makes fun of the ideological philosophy that everything happens for good reasons, and the view of perfect humanism(Voltaire 25). Voltaire chooses Candide as a naïve subject for his optimistic Enlightenment worldview to reveal the vileness, atrocity and avarice in the worldly competition for prestige. Unlike the financial calculation in Hogarth’s The Marriage Transaction, Candide’s commoner background and poverty give him no financial advantage for getting a woman he loved, Cunegonde. In the early beginning, Candide gets expelled from his birth place simply because he gets caught by the baron while he is flirting with baron’s sister, Cunegonde. Candide’s banishment not only symbolizes the noble’s abuse of privilege that contradicts the property protection in the Enlightenment philosophy, but also the possession of wealth and prestige that are so imperative to measure one’s standing on a society. After Cunegonde gets raped, abandoned, and lost her beauty, the baron still cling to his noble pride and snobbishness that he refuses Candide‘s proposal to Cunegonde. Like the fervent desire for materialism depicted in Hogarth’s The Marriage Transaction, Candide’s relationship with Cunegonde proves that being financially invested not only can gain a woman or man you loved, but also sustain a relationship much longer than being emotionally invested.

             While men are portrayed as hypocrite, vulgar and snobbish, the upper class women also depicted as coquettish, unchaste and ignorant as they search for their own profit. Compare Cunegonde in Candide to the daughter of a wealthy merchant in Hogarth’s The Marriage Transaction, these female figures are similar in their lack of chastity and selfishness. Cunegonde, as a very complex individual who claims to love Candide as much as he does, ends up in becoming a mistress of several rich men. Even after Candide kills her paramours and they engage themselves to each other, Cunegonde still choose to marry Don Fernando, the wealthy Spanish governor, for her own interest. However, Candide still naively admires Cunegonde and fails to recognize the corruption in human nature that is shaped by a materialistic world. If the objective of Enlightenment philosophy is the betterment of individuals socially and economically, then the lust for power and wealth prove the absurdity of these optimistic views. In Hogarth’s Marriage a la Mode, women and men are both flirting with each other regardless of their status. The daughter of a wealthy merchant who is flirting with a lawyer represents the female desire for a relationship with a more prestigious and wealthy man. The liberalism and independence stressed in the Enlightenment philosophy are mocked by those men as well as women who are less aware of the gender difference in a modern society. 

                 Although the Enlightenment brings the reason, individual right and freedom to motivate people for improving their society, people become selfish, calculating, and nonchalant toward each other because of their new found freedom. As brutal satirists, Voltaire and Hogarth challenge the optimistic Enlightenment worldviews by mocking the selfishness, competition for personal profit behind these pompously decorated houses, dresses, and the matrimonial unions of males and females. The perfect view of society in Enlightenment philosophy turns out to be found only in Eden, where everyone is truly altruistic and unreserved toward each other. In Hogarth’s Marriage de la Mode and Voltaire’s Candide, their mockery regarding the real world outside these optimistic views reflect their desperation and agony; people are forced to make choices for their own survival no matter what it costs. Perhaps, in real life, being egoistic is the only way to survive from starvation, poverty and oppression during eighteenth century.