Candide Notes | Chapter 3

"How Candide Escaped from the Bulgarians and What Became of Him"

The narrator describes the battle scene with details of splendid pageantry:

"Nothing could be smarter, more splendid, more brilliant, better drawn up than two armies. Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, cannons, formed a harmony such as has never been heard even in hell." Chapter 3, pg. 11

Candide hides while thirty thousand soldiers die on the battlefield. He decides to do his philosophizing elsewhere. He sees corpses and mutilated people while he walks through burned out Bulgarian and Abare villages. He thinks about Cunégonde, and walks to Holland. He runs out of food, and when he asks for a handout from some people, they threaten to put him in a house of correction. An orator preaches about charity to a crowd. He asks Candide if he believes the Pope is the antichrist. Candide says he doesn't know, but that he is hungry. The orator says Candide should starve, and the orator's wife pours something on Candide's head. Jacques the Anabaptist sees this cruel treatment and takes care of Candide.

One day, Candide sees a beggar who is sick and coughing.

Topic tracking: Flawed Logic 3
Topic Tracking: War 2
Topic Tracking: Optimism 2
Topic Tracking: Hypocrisy 1