Voltaire, pseudonym of François-Marie Arouet (born November 21, 1694,
Paris, France—died May 30, 1778, Paris), one of the greatest of all French
philosopher and writers. Although only a few of his works are still read, he
continues to be held in worldwide repute as a courageous crusader against
tyranny, bigotry, and cruelty. Through its critical capacity, wit, and satire,
Voltaire’s work vigorously propagates an ideal of progress to which people of
all nations have remained responsive. His long life spanned the last years of
classicism and the eve of the revolutionary era, and during this age of
transition his works and activities influenced the direction taken by European
civilization.
Candide
In Candide, Candide has a series of increasingly bizarre
adventures. After being banished from his childhood home, he joins the army,
flees the Inquisition, travels to South America, finds the mythical city of El
Dorado, and then reunites with his beloved Cunegonde.
- Candide
grows up in Westphalia, where he's taught by the philosopher Pangloss that
this is the best of all possible worlds. Despite the atrocities he
witnesses in the course of the novel, Candide never truly gives up this
belief.
- When
the Baron of Westphalia discovers that Candide has fallen in love with the
Baron's daughter Cunegonde, he banishes Candide, prompting Candide's long
and winding journey to win her back.
- In
the end, having been reunited with Cunegonde, who has lost her good looks,
Candide concludes that it's enough to be content and that all one needs to
be happy is a garden of one's own to tend.
SUMMARY
Candide, the illegitimate son of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh’s sister, is
born in Westphalia. Dr. Pangloss, his tutor and a devout follower of Gottfried
Wilhelm von Leibnitz, teaches him metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology and
assures his pupil that this is the best of all possible worlds. Cunegonde, the
daughter of the baron, kisses Candide one day behind a screen, whereupon
Candide is expelled from the noble baron’s household.
Impressed into the army of the king of Bulgaria, Candide deserts during
a battle between the king of Bulgaria and the king of Abares. Later, he is
befriended by James the Anabaptist. He also meets his old friend, Dr. Pangloss,
now a beggar. James, Pangloss, and Candide start for Lisbon. Their ship is
wrecked in a storm off the coast of Portugal. James is drowned, but Candide and
Pangloss swim to shore just as an earthquake shakes the city. The rulers of
Lisbon, both secular and religious, decide to punish the people whose
wickedness brings about the earthquake, and Candide and Pangloss are among the
accused. Pangloss is hanged, and Candide is thoroughly whipped.
He is still smarting from his wounds when an old woman accosts Candide
and tells him to have courage and to follow her. She leads him to a house where
he is fed and clothed. Then Cunegonde appears. Candide is amazed because
Pangloss told him that Cunegonde is dead. Cunegonde relates what happened to
her since she last saw Candide. She is being kept by a Jew and an Inquisitor,
but she holds both men at a distance. Candide kills the Jew and the Inquisitor
when they come to see her.
Together with the old woman, Cunegonde and Candide flee to Cadiz, where
they are robbed. In despair, they sail for Paraguay, where Candide hopes to
enlist in the Spanish army then fighting the rebellious Jesuits. During the
voyage, the old woman tells her story. They learn that she is the daughter of
Pope Urban X and the princess of Palestrina.
The governor of Buenos Aires develops a great affection for Cunegonde
and causes Candide to be accused of having committed robbery while still in
Spain. Candide flees with his servant, Cacambo; Cunegonde and the old woman
remain behind. When Candide decides to fight for the Jesuits, he learns that
the commandant is Cunegonde’s brother. The brother will not hear of his
sister’s marrying Candide. They quarrel, and Candide, fearing that he killed
the brother, takes to the road with Cacambo once more. Shortly afterward, they
are captured by the Oreillons, a tribe of savage Indians, but when Cacambo
proves they are not Jesuits, the two are released. They travel on to Eldorado.
There life is simple and perfect, but Candide is not happy because he misses
Cunegonde.
At last he decides to take some of the useless jeweled pebbles and
golden mud of Eldorado and return to Buenos Aires to search for Cunegonde. He
and Cacambo start out with a hundred sheep laden with riches, but they lose all
but two sheep. When Candide approaches a Dutch merchant and tries to arrange
passage to Buenos Aires, the merchant sails away with all his money and
treasures, leaving him behind. Cacambo then goes to Buenos Aires to find
Cunegonde and take her to Venice to meet Candide. After many adventures,
including a sea fight and the miraculous recovery of one of his lost sheep from
a sinking ship, Candide arrives at Bordeaux. His intention is to go to Venice
by way of Paris. Police arrest him in Paris, however, and Candide is forced to
buy his freedom with diamonds. Later, he sails on a Dutch ship to Portsmouth,
England, where he witnesses the execution of an English admiral. From
Portsmouth he goes to Venice. There he finds no Cacambo and no Cunegonde. He
does, however, meet Paquette, Cunegonde’s waiting maid. Shortly afterward,
Candide encounters Cacambo, who is now a slave and who informs him that
Cunegonde is in Constantinople. In the Venetian galley that carries them to
Constantinople, Candide finds Pangloss and Cunegonde’s brother among the galley
slaves. Pangloss relates that he miraculously escaped from his hanging in
Lisbon because the bungling hangman was not able to tie a proper knot.
Cunegonde’s brother tells how he survived the wound that Candide thought fatal.
Candide buys both men from the Venetians and gives them their freedom.
When the group arrives at Constantinople, Candide buys the old woman and
Cunegonde from their masters and also purchases a little farm to which they all
retire. There each has his or her own particular work to do. Candide decides
that the best thing in the world is to cultivate one’s garden.
ANALYSIS
“Candide: Or, All for the Best” is Voltaire’s most widely known work and
one of the most widely read pieces of literature written in the French
language. Voltaire invented the philosophical tale as a means to convey his own
ideas and, at the same time, entertain his readers with satirical wit and
ironic innuendo. Candide (the name refers to purity and frankness) is the
tale’s main character. He embodies the philosophical idea of optimism that
Voltaire intends to oppose.
As the story begins, Candide is forced to leave Wesphalia because he has
been caught kissing the baron’s daughter, the beautiful Cunegonde. Candide is
driven from the splendid castle of the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh, where Doctor
Pangloss has been Candide’s tutor and has taught him that all is well in this
“best of all possible worlds.” Little time passes before the naïve Candide
finds himself conscripted into the Bulgarian army. As a soldier, he witnesses
firsthand the terrible atrocities of war. Escaping to Holland, he miraculously
encounters Pangloss, who is himself in a pitiful physical state. From the
ever-optimistic philosopher, Candide learns that his former home in Germany has
been burned to the ground and that all of those inside have been massacred by
the advancing Bulgarian army.
Voltaire continues to narrate his story with a cascade of adventures. He
nonetheless keeps close to the principal reason for telling his tale:
discrediting the metaphysical idea that all that happens on earth has been
determined by Providence and therefore must be judged as being for the good of
humankind. Pangloss, who has lost part of his nose and one eye to syphilis,
continues to insist that all is going well in spite of overwhelming adversity.
Candide and Pangloss travel to Lisbon, where they arrive just in time to
experience the famous earthquake of 1755. Not only are they caught in Portugal
during this natural disaster, but they also become embroiled in the
Inquisition. Only by the reappearance and intervention of Cunegonde is Candide
saved (Pangloss is a presumed victim of the Inquisition). In rescuing
Cunegonde, however, Candide must kill an Israelite and the Grand Inquisitor.
Candide, Cunegonde, and an old woman (the daughter of Pope Urban X) flee
to South America. Even there, they are tracked by the agents of the
Inquisition; Candide and Cunegonde must separate or risk being burned at the
stake. Candide takes refuge in Paraguay, the kingdom of the Jesuits, where “Los
Padres have everything and the people have nothing.” Candide comes upon
Cunegonde’s brother among the Jesuit leaders. They quarrel because Candide, in
spite of his humble origins, insists on marrying the young baron’s sister.
Candide wounds him, apparently mortally, and again takes flight with his valet
and companion Cacambo.
Throughout all the journeys of Candide, who next discovers Eldorado (the
city of gold and precious jewels), Voltaire delights in attacking the excesses
of humankind—from the brutality of wars to the ignoble institution of the
Inquisition. In order to emphasize tolerance and moderation, Voltaire presents
characters that are immediately identified as representing extreme philosophical
positions: Pangloss (who reappears at the end of the story in Constantinople)
holds tenaciously to an absurd optimism, and Martin (Candide’s companion on his
trip back to Europe and on to Constantinople) affirms with equal stubbornness
that there is little virtue and happiness in a world filled with evil.
While in Venice, Candide learns that his once-beautiful Cunegonde is now
washing dishes on a riverbank for a prince in Turkey. From Cacambo, he hears
that Cunegonde has even grown ugly and ill-tempered. Still, being an honorable
man, Candide intends to marry Mlle Cunegonde, and he sets off immediately for
the Turkish city. While en route, he finds Pangloss and Cunegonde’s brother
(resuscitated) among the galley slaves on the Turkish boat. Candide still
possesses some of the diamonds that he carried away from Eldorado and is able
to buy his friends’ freedom. As chance would have it, all the characters of
this tale end up living together on a small vegetable farm somewhere on the
outskirts of Constantinople. Candide’s money is exhausted, Cunegonde grows more
unendurable, Cacambo curses his fate as a vegetable seller, Pangloss despairs
because he is not teaching in a good German university, and Martin persists in
seeing humankind caught in either the throes of distress or the doldrums of
lethargy. Candide does not agree, but he no longer asserts anything. Instead of
arguing metaphysical and moral questions, he heeds the advice of an old man who
tells him, “work keeps at bay three great evils: boredom, vice and need.” From
this lesson, Candide concludes “that we should cultivate our gardens.” In the
end, the little farm yields well, and all eat candied citrons and pistachios.
Voltaire ends the tale, on a note of neither pessimism nor optimism, with his characters
working and living in peace together.
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