Voltaire: Candide or Optimism

Voltaire's Candide is, despite the two and a half centuries that separate us from its composition, a work that is constantly alive and relevant. Voltaire based his story around the fate of a naive young man, gifted with an undying optimism, who wanders the many corners of the world in order to gain knowledge about the essence of our life. On his pilgrimage, he encounters various forms of evil, either by individuals, society or nature itself. Does the story's mission statement contain a biting satire on the representatives of power, their recklessness and arrogance?