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In Candide, Voltaire responds to 18th century historical events and philosophical trends, giving a satirical look at the noble classes, speculative metaphysics, war and the Church. In most of his dramatic, historical and prose works, Voltaire targets tyranny, oppression and the hypocrisy of the Church. As a prolific writer, intellectual leader and political watchdog, Voltaire figures prominently in the 18th century Enlightenment, a time when writers and intellectuals known as "the philosophes" championed religious and social tolerance, the sciences, freedom of thought, and reliance on human reason. According to one biographer, "Voltaire made men think for themselves. He infuriated them either by challenging accepted beliefs, or by questioning political and social conventions" (Hearsey, xi).
Voltaire was born François-Marie Arouet in 1694. He studied literature, the classics, theatre, and religion at the famous Jesuit college, Louis-le-Grand. His father insisted he study law, but he turned to writing instead. He joined the Society of the Temple, a freethinking and irreverent group of nobles and churchmen, and became notorious for his short literary works and mocking quips. In 1717, for his alleged ridicule of the Duke of Orleans, Voltaire was thrown in the Bastille for eleven months. There he completed his tragedy Œdipe, wrote much of La Henriade, and adopted the pseudonym "de Voltaire".
Scandal erupting from publication of the pro-Protestant La Henriade along with a feud with the Chevalier de Rohan-Chabot (he mocked Voltaire for his adopted name) brought Voltaire back to the Bastille in 1726. Voltaire quickly promised to leave France for England, where he spent over two years in exile. Voltaire met influential English writers and philosophers including Pope, Congreve and Swift. Voltaire was impressed with English policies of religious tolerance and free speech, while his circle of friends encouraged his Deist tendencies.
Voltaire returned to France and continued writing plays and historical works. His praise of English society and its religious tolerance the Lettres Philosophiques implicitly criticized his government's despotism and the Church. After spending three years at the court of Frederic the Great, King of Prussia, Voltaire settled in France near Geneva.
His poem about the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 questioned the doctrine of optimism, which he also lampooned in Candide. Optimism held that god's overall scheme offsets all individual misfortunes; god chose this world out of many possible worlds because it was the best option. This provided the famous "sufficient reason", much maligned in Candide, for the supposed perfection of the world. Amongst Voltaire's numerous dramatic and historical works is his treatise on religious tolerance, written after he helped to champion the cause of Jean Calais, a man brutally executed for being Protestant.
Voltaire died in 1778, eleven years before the French Revolution.
"best of all possible worlds" Encyclopœdia Brittanica Online. Brailsford, Henry Noel, M.A. Voltaire. London: Henry Holt and Company, 1935. "Calas, Jean" Encyclopœdia Brittanica Online. Collocoh, TC, M.A., Thorne, Jo, M.A. Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 1984. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Crystal, David, ed. The Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. "Deism" Encyclopœdia Brittanica Online. "ethics" Encyclopœdia Brittanica Online. "Europe, history of" Encyclopœdia Brittanica Online. "French Literature" Encyclopœdia Brittanica Online. Hearsey, John. Voltaire. New York: Harper and Row, 1976. "philosophe" Encyclopœdia Brittanica Online. Shellinger, Paul E., ed. St. James Guide to Biography. Chicago: St. James Press Inc., 1991. Voltaire, Candide, Ou L'Optimisme. Ed. George R. Havens. New York: Henry Holt and Company Inc., 1954. "Voltaire" Encyclopœdia Britannica Online. Voltaire. The Portable Voltaire. Ed. Ben Ray Redman. New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 1977. Waldinger, Renée, ed. Approaches to Teaching Voltaire's Candide. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1987. Candide is expelled from the Baron's castle for kissing Cunégonde. After forced enlistment in the Bulgarian army, he witnesses the atrocities of war. Candide flees to Holland, meets Jacques the Anabaptist, and finds the philosopher, Dr. Pangloss, now a beggar ravaged by a venereal disease. Pangloss reports that the Bulgarians raped and disemboweled Cunégonde. Candide, Jacques, and Pangloss sail to Lisbon. A storm destroys the ship, Jacques drowns, and Candide and Pangloss survive only to watch as an earthquake and tidal wave level Lisbon. Pangloss insists that despite the total ruin of Lisbon, the world is still the best of all possible worlds (optimism). For making such a heretical statement, Pangloss is hung while Candide is beaten during a ceremony of the Spanish Inquisition. An old woman reunites Candide with Cunégonde, who survived the Bulgarian invasion, surviving a rape and partial disembowelment. Cunégonde is now the mistress of both Don Issachar and the Grand Inquisitor of Lisbon. Candide kills them both. Candide, Cunégonde, and the old woman flee to Cadiz. There he volunteers to fight against the Jesuits in Paraguay. They sail to Buenos Aires. When they arrive, Candide flees when the old woman spots a ship from Spain in hot pursuit. Candide and his valet Cacambo join the Jesuits instead. The Commandant of the Jesuits is actually Cunégonde's brother, the Baron's son. The reunion turns sour when the Baron's son forbids Candide to marry Cunégonde. Candide stabs him. Candide and Cacambo escape only to be captured by the Oreillons, a tribe of natives, but the diplomatic Cacambo convinces the natives to release them. Candide and Cacambo happen upon the utopian kingdom of Eldorado. Candide and Cacambo then leave (with 102 red sheep covered in jewels) to find Cunégonde. They arrive in Surinam where Candide is swindled by a Dutch sailor and a judge. Candide sends Cacambo to fetch Cunégonde in Buenos Aires and to meet him in Venice. Candide befriends Martin the pessimist. Candide and Martin sail to Bordeaux. In Paris, Candide falls ill and loses money to various con artists. Candide and Martin sail to England where they watch the public execution of an English admiral who did not kill enough people. In Venice, Candide and Martin meet Cacambo. They sail to Constantinople. En route, Candide, Martin and Cacambo find Dr. Pangloss, who survived the hanging, and Cunégonde's brother, the Baron's son. The group then rejoins Cunégonde and the old woman. The Baron's son forbids Candide to marry his sister again. Candide sends him back to the galley ship. Candide settles down on a farm. Cunégonde, the old woman, Martin, Cacambo, and Pangloss join him. After much philosophical debating between Candide, Martin and Pangloss, Candide declares that one must stop philosophizing and cultivate one's garden as the only defense against boredom and dissatisfaction. Candide: The young hero of Voltaire's tale, Candide's name suggests his naïve and simple personality. His expulsion from the castle of the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh sets in motion a search for his darling Cunégonde. During his journey, Candide survives a series of disasters and misfortunes, every step of the way undermining the credibility of Dr. Pangloss's philosophy of optimism.
Cunégonde: The young, beautiful daughter of the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh, and sweetheart of Candide, her privileged life ends abruptly when Bulgarian soldiers rape and disembowel her and kill her parents. She is mistress to a number of brutal men, and slave to a Transylvanian prince. Though her beauty and charm wither away, Candide fulfills his promise to marry her. She becomes a pastry chef on Candide's farm. The name Cunégonde has historical significance. A woman canonized in 1012 for demonstrating her chastity in a trial by fire was named Cunégonde. Candide's Cunégonde is not so chaste, however.
Pangloss: Philosopher and tutor of Candide and the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh's children, he teaches metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology, a brand of metaphysics promoting the philosophy of optimism. Pangloss states that the world is the best of all possible worlds in which all is well and all is for the best. Though venereal disease almost kills him, though the Spanish Inquisition hangs him (unsuccessfully), and though he witnesses the misfortunes of his fellow men, Pangloss refuses to recant his optimism. His logic is flawed, if not altogether absurd. Pangloss joins Candide and Candide's friends to settle on a farm in Turkey.
The Old Woman: Daughter of the Princess of Palestrina and Pope Urban X, she was once a sought-after and privileged beauty but, like Cunégonde, fate forced her to undergo a series of harsh trials, including enslavement and the loss of one buttock to cannibalistic soldiers.
Cacambo: Candide's loyal valet, Cacambo saves Candide from being skewered by natives in Paraguay, and eventually helps reunite Candide with Cunégonde and the old woman. Cacambo is a kind of cosmopolitan Jack-of-all-trades. He was born in Peru, speaks several languages, and has worked in a number of different capacities, including choir-boy, lackey, and slave to a deposed king. His experience and pragmatism is of great help to Candide. He becomes the household gardener on Candide's farm.
The Baron's son: As Cunégonde's brother, the Baron's son takes after his father, priding himself on his noble lineage. He forbids Cunégonde to marry anyone of lower status, including Candide. After the Bulgarians kill his parents and destroy the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh, the Baron's son becomes a Jesuit.
Martin: Befriended by Candide in Surinam, Martin follows Candide to France, England, Venice and Turkey. Martin sees through the designs of the Parisian con artists who swindle Candide. His practical cynicism contrasts sharply with Candide's naiveté. Unlike Dr. Pangloss, Martin is devoutly pessimistic. The misery and unfortunate events endured by characters in Candide confirm Martin's pessimism. Martin is also a self-declared Manichaean--one who believes that the universe is composed of opposing realms of good and evil; the human spirit, which is good, struggles to transcend the body which exists in the evil realm.
His Lordship the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh: According to Pangloss, the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh is the greatest baron in the province of Westphalia. He expels Candide from his castle when he sees Candide kissing Cunégonde.
Paquette: A waiting maid of Her Ladyship the Baroness, Paquette contracts a venereal disease from a friar and gives it to Pangloss. She becomes a miserable prostitute.
King of the Bulgarians: He may be a caricature of Frederic the Great, King of Prussia, famous for his successful military campaigns and his strictly regimented army. Due to his patronage of the arts and his interest in literature, he was known as an enlightened ruler. Voltaire spent about three years at his court in Potsdam, but they severed ties after a dispute.
Jacques the Anabaptist: The Anabaptists were a Protestant sect. They believed children can't know the difference between good and evil. They advocated adult baptism instead. Jacques takes care of Candide and Pangloss, and he sails with them to Lisbon. He drowns in the shipwreck.
The Sailor: Rude and irreverent, he survives the shipwreck off the coast of Portugal. Though Jacques the Anabaptist saves him from drowning, the sailor does not return the favor.
My Lord the Inquisitor: The top official of the Spanish Inquisition in Lisbon, he conducts autos-da-fé and shares his affection for Cunégonde with her owner, Don Issachar. Candide kills him.
Don Issachar: A Jew who keeps Cunégonde as his mistress. Candide kills him.
Governor of Buenos Aires: His name and his countenance are a caricature of Spanish pride and nobility.
Negro slave: Missing a hand and a leg, his wretched story inspires Candide to declare that he may have to renounce optimism.
Monsieur Vanderdendur: Owner of the Negro Slave, Monsieur Vanderdendur cut off the slave's leg when he tried to run away. He swindles Candide, steals his red sheep, but meets a suitable end when his ship is attacked by pirates.
Abbé from Périgord: This sly abbot is anything but honest and decent. He dupes Candide in Paris and robs him of his money.
Friar Giroflée: He and Paquette are lovers. He was forced to become a friar by his parents. He spends his money on prostitutes. He settles down and works as a carpenter on Candide's farm.
Lord Pococurante: A Venetian nobleman. In Spanish, his name means 'little care'. He represents bored self-indulgence and hedonism. His eccentric and irreverent views on art, music and literature surprise Candide. The Castle of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh: This castle in the German province of Westphalia has a door and some windows, and this is why the Baron is very powerful. According to Pangloss, it is the best of all castles. For Candide, it is a kind of paradise.
Holland: Fleeing the Bulgarian army, Candide walks to Holland where he thinks he will be treated well because the Dutch are Christians. For the most part, Candide's reasoning proves wrong. Candide also meets Jacques the Anabaptist and finds Pangloss in Holland.
Lisbon, Portugal: After their ship sinks and Jacques drowns, Pangloss and Candide arrive in Lisbon where an earthquake and tidal wave destroy most of the port city. Then, for blasphemy, Pangloss is hung by the Spanish Inquisition in an auto-da-fé. Candide is beaten for listening to Pangloss.
The Spanish Inquisition: Officially instituted in 1478 by the Roman Catholic Church to help the Spanish monarchy seek out and punish heretics, the Spanish Inquisition was notorious for brutal practices such as torturing victims in order to get religious confessions.
Auto-da-Fé: 'Act of faith' in Portuguese. A public ceremony of the Spanish Inquisition during which religious leaders pronounced judgments against heretics. Punishment was carried out by government officials. Most victims were Protestant, Muslim, or Jewish. The condemned were burned at the stake.
San Benitos: A garment worn by both penitents and impenitents of the Spanish Inquisition. Penitents wore san benitos that were yellow with red crosses. Impenitents--heretics burned at the stake during autos-da-fé--wore black san benitos decorated with devils and flames.
The Oreillons: The native tribe that captures Candide and Cacambo in Paraguay. Candide wonders what Pangloss would say upon seeing that the state of nature is just as uncivilized as Europe. Voltaire is mocking Rousseau's assertion that man in the state of nature was a much more humane and civilized individual than modern man.
Eldorado: A utopian kingdom in Peru isolated from the rest of the world. Though Candide supposes that Eldorado might be the best of all possible worlds, Candide and Cacambo decide to leave Eldorado in order to find Cunégonde.
Red Sheep: When Candide and Cacambo leave Eldorado, they saddle one hundred and two of these red pack animals with gold and jewels. Only one sheep survives and Candide donates it to the Academy of Sciences at Bordeaux for scientific study.
Paris: Candide falls ill as soon as he reaches Paris, where he is swindled by a series of con artists.
Venice: Candide and Martin run into Paquette and her lover Friar Giroflée in Venice. This is also where Candide is reunited with Cacambo.
Turkey: In Turkey, Candide buys the freedom of Cunégonde and the old woman, and he also buys a small farm where he settles with Cunégonde, Pangloss, Martin, Cacambo, the old woman, Paquette, and Friar Giroflée. Quote 1: "'Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches. Stones were formed to be quarried and to build castles; and My Lord has a very noble castle; the greatest Baron in the province should have the best house; and as pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all year round; consequently, those who have asserted all is well talk nonsense; they ought to have said that all is for the best.'" Chapter 1, pg. 4 Quote 2: "Nothing could be smarter, more splendid, more brilliant, better drawn up than two armies. Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, cannons, formed a harmony such as never been heard in hell." Chapter 3, pg. 11 Quote 3: "...if Columbus in an island of America had not caught the disease, which poisons the source of generation, and often indeed prevents generation, we should not have chocolate and cochineal" Chapter 4, pg. 17 Quote 4: "'Men,' said he, 'must have corrupted nature a little, for they were not born wolves, and they have become wolves. God did not give them twenty-four-pounder cannons or bayonets, and they have made bayonets and cannons to destroy each other." Chapter 4, pg. 18 Quote 5: "...and private misfortunes make the public good, so that the more private misfortunes there are, the more everything is well." Chapter 4, pg. 19 Quote 6: "It was decided by the university of Coimbre that the sight of several persons being slowly burned in great ceremony is an infallible secret for preventing earthquakes." Chapter 6, pg. 24 Quote 7: "If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others?" Chapter 6, pg. 25 Quote 8: "A lady of honor may be raped once, but it strengthens her virtue." Chapter 7, pg. 30 Quote 9: "Pangloss deceived me cruelly when he said that all is for the best in the world." Chapter 7, pg. 32 Quote 10: "'when a man is in love, jealous, and has been flogged by the Inquisition, he is beside himself.'" Chapter 9, pg. 35 Quote 11: "'We are going to a new world,' said Candide, 'and no doubt it is there that everything is for the best; for it must be admitted that one might lament a little over the physical and moral happenings of our own world.'" Chapter 10, pg. 38 Quote 12: "'Alas! My dear,'said she, 'unless you have been raped by two Bulgarians, stabbed twice in the belly, have had two castles destroyed, two fathers and mothers murdered before your eyes, and have seen two of your lovers flogged in an auto-da-fe, I do not see how you can surpass me; moreover, I was born a Baroness with seventy-two quarterings and I have been a kitchen wench.'" Chapter 10, pg. 39 Quote 13: "'Imagine the situation of a Pope's daughter aged fifteen, who in three months had undergone poverty and slavery, had been raped nearly every day, had seen her mother cut into four pieces, had undergone hunger and war, and was now dying of the plague in Algiers.'" Chapter 12, pg. 46 Quote 14: "'[I]s there anything sillier than to desire to bear continually a burden one always wishes to throw on the ground; to look upon oneself with horror and yet to cling to oneself; in short to caress the serpent which desires us until he has eaten our heart?'" Chapter 12, pg. 49 Quote 15: "'Los Padres have everything and the people have nothing; 'tis the masterpiece of reason and justice. For my part, I know nothing so divine as Los Padres who make war on Kings of Spain and Portugal and in Europe act as their confessors; who here kill Spaniards and at Madrid send them to Heaven.'" Chapter 14, pg. 55 Quote 16: "'[Y]ou are surprised by everything; why should you think it so strange that in some countries there should be monkeys who obtain ladies favours? They are quarter men, as I am a quarter Spaniard.'" Chapter 16, pg. 64 Quote 17: "If we do not exert the right of eating our neighbor, it is because we have other means of making good cheer[.]" Chapter 16, pg. 65 Quote 18: "'[I]n spite of what Dr. Pangloss said, I often noticed that everything went very ill in Westphalia.'" Chapter 17, pg. 72 Quote 19: "'What! Have you no monks to teach, to dispute, to govern, to intrigue and to burn people who do not agree with them?'" Chapter 18, pg. 75 Quote 20: "'[I]f our friend Pangloss had seen Eldorado, he would not have said that the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh was the best of all that exists on earth; certainly a man should travel.'" Chapter 18, pg. 75-76 Quote 21: "Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less miserable than we are.'" Chapter 19, pg. 82 Quote 22: "'What is optimism?', said Cacambo. 'Alas!' said Candide, 'it is the mania of maintaining that everything is well when we are wretched.'" Chapter 19, pg. 83 Quote 23: "The malevolence of men revealed itself to his mind in all of its ugliness[.]" Chapter 19, pg. 86 Quote 24: "'I confess that when I consider this globe, or rather this globule, I think that God has abandoned it to some evil creature[.]'" Chapter 20, pg. 90 Quote 25: "'Do you think,' said Candide, 'that men have always massacred each other, as they do today? Have they always been liars, cheats, traitors, brigands, weak, flighty, cowardly, envious, gluttonous, drunken, grasping, and vicious, bloody, backbiting, debauched, fanatical, hypocritical, and silly?'" Chapter 21, pg. 95 Quote 26: "It would have been better to stay in the Paradise of Eldorado instead of returning to this accursed Europe. How right you are, my dear Martin! Everything is illusion and calamity!" Chapter 24, pg. 112 Quote 27: "Candide, who had been taught never to judge everything for himself, was greatly surprised by what he heard." Chapter 25, pg. 122 Quote 28: "'[I]s there not pleasure in criticizing, in finding faults where other men think they see beauty?' 'That is to say,' said Martin, 'that there is pleasure in not being pleased.'" Chapter 25, pg. 125 Quote 29: "'I do not know,' said Martin, 'what scales your Pangloss would use to weigh the misfortunes of men and to estimate their sufferings. All I presume is that there are millions of men on earth a hundred times more to be pitied than King Charles Edward, the Emperor Ivan, and the Sultan Achmet.'" Chapter 27, pg.134 Quote 30: "'[W]hen you were hanged, dissected, stunned with blows and made to row in the galleys, did you always think that everything was for the best in this world?'" Chapter 28, pg. 140 Quote 31: "Candide, that tender lover, seeing his fair Cunégonde sunburned, blear-eyed, flat-breasted, with wrinkles around her eyes and red, chapped arms, recoiled three paces in horror, and then advanced from mere politeness." Chapter 29, pg. 141 Quote 32: "'I should like to know which is worse, to be raped a hundred times by Negro pirates, to have a buttock cut off, to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and flogged in an auto-da-fé, to be dissected, to row in a galley, in short, to endure all the miseries through which we have passed, or to remain here doing nothing?'" Chapter 30, pg. 145 Quote 33: "'What does it matter,' said the Dervish, 'whether there is evil or good? When his highness sends a ship to Egypt, does he worry about the comfort or discomfort of the rats in the ship?'" Chapter 30, pg. 146 Quote 34: "'Work keeps at bay three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.'" Chapter 30, pg. 148 Quote 35: "'Let us work without theorizing,' said Martin; ''tis the only way to make life endurable.'" Chapter 30, pg. 149 Chapter 1 Flawed Logic 1: Voltaire points out the absurdity of optimism through the use of irony, hyperbole, understatement, and especially flawed logic. For instance, the narrator reasons that the Baron is powerful because his castle has a door and some windows; the Baroness is respected because she weighs three hundred and fifty pounds. And when Pangloss demonstrates the principles of cause and effect, he cites the nose as an example. It was made to wear glasses, so the cause of noses are spectacles, while the effects of spectacles are noses. Based on these premises, Pangloss concludes that this is the best of all possible worlds, and all is well. The narrator also reasons that because Candide finds Cunégonde very attractive, he listens attentively to Pangloss. The two statements have no logical relationship. Chapter 2 Flawed Logic 2: The soldiers at the inn make the ridiculous statement that great people who are five feet tall like Candide don't have to pay for their dinners. And when they explain that men are supposed to help one another, then they put Candide in shackles and force him to join their army. Of all the possible reasons to pardon Candide, the King of the Bulgarians pardons him on the grounds that Candide is a philosopher, but one who doesn't know much about the world. Chapter 3 Flawed Logic 3: Candide sees dying people, corpses, and body parts in the burned villages, but he still thinks of Cunégonde. Candide goes to Holland because Christians live there. The Baron was Christian. Presumably the Bulgarians and the Abares were Christian as well. Candide reasons that the people in Holland will be equally nice to him. The orator wants to know if Candide is for a good cause--or rather is Candide a Protestant. But when Candide hears the orator say "cause"--one of Pangloss's philosophical catch phrases-Candide offers the orator a short lesson in optimism, ending with the absurd conclusion that everything has happened for the best. Chapter 4 Flawed Logic 4: Candide naively speculates that his departure from the castle precipitated Cunégonde's death. Though Pangloss attributes glorious things to romantic and physical love, he identifies it as the source of his miserable condition. Candide questions love itself, pointing out that his love for Cunégonde brought him nothing but trouble. Just as spectacles were the necessary consequence of noses, Pangloss sees his venereal disease as a necessary consequence of Europe's acquisition of New World commodities like chocolate and cochineal. After extolling the merits of his venereal disease, Pangloss tells Candide that it has made "marvelous progress" in Europe, particularly among soldiers, not unlike those who raped and killed Cunégonde, who he calls "honest", and "well-bred". Candide replies that this is "admirable". Chapter 5 Flawed Logic 5: Pangloss chastises the sailor when he engages a prostitute. Pangloss's only moral objection is that the timing is inappropriate. Candide shows signs of doubting Pangloss's logic, saying that Pangloss's theory explaining the cause of the earthquake is just probable. Pangloss is outraged that Candide should doubt him. However, despite Pangloss's firm belief that he proved his theory, he has no evidence to support it. Pangloss offers his petty condolences to the survivors. He reasons that the earthquake happened for the best because his speculative theory states that things could not have be otherwise. Chapter 6 Flawed Logic 6: Leaders in Lisbon think burning a few people at the stake will prevent future earthquakes. This is only slightly less outrageous than Pangloss's theory that a train of sulfur connecting Lisbon and Lima caused the earthquake, although Pangloss's explanation appears somewhat more scientific. Chapter 7 Flawed Logic 7: Cunégonde states that being raped only strengthens a woman's resolve to be virtuous. Cunégonde breaks up the somber mood of her story by repeatedly shifting focus from the sordid events to irrelevant and lighthearted details; the Bulgarian soldier was six feet tall; the Bulgarian captain thinks she is pretty, has nice skin, but is not smart; Don Issachar's house is more splendid than the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh; she gets a good seat at the auto-da-fé where refreshments are served; Candide's skin is whiter than that of the Bulgarian captain. Chapter 10 Flawed Logic 8: Candide naively wonders why the reverend Franciscan father did not leave enough money for them when he stole all of Cunégonde's money. According to Pangloss, who advocates equal distribution of wealth, leaving behind some of Cunégonde's money would have been more logical. Candide stupidly connects thievery with the meaning of what would now be called a kind of socialist doctrine. Like many characters in Candide, Cunégonde strings together phrases that often have meaningless, if not absurd, relationships. They are linked by the conjunctions "but", and "for". This is a non sequitur--the connection of two or more ideas that have no logical or meaningful relationship. For example, Cunégonde tells Candide, "I love you with all of my heart, but my soul is still shocked by what I have seen and undergone." Chapter 10, pg. 39. Chapter 16 Flawed Logic 9: When Candide murders the girls' lover, Cacambo calls it a "masterpiece". Cacambo observes that murdering one's neighbor is a universal norm, and thus assumes that it is not only a natural right but a law, and a just one at that. This is similar to all the positive international laws mentioned previously in Candide. Instead of being prohibitive, these laws direct people to commit atrocities. Like the philosophy of optimism, this inversion of the moral code results in similar absurdities: if immoral acts like murder are a necessary component to the best of all possible worlds, striving to be just or moral is futile. Chapter 22 Flawed Logic 10: The narrator inverts the logical progression of the statement, which describes how medicine and blood-letting "help" Candide worsen his condition. The narrator creates the expectation that these therapies are going to make Candide well, but he concludes by saying they make Candide's health worse. Statements like this reinforce the comical absurdity of Candide's world. Chapter 24 Flawed Logic 11: Candide makes the sweeping statement that, besides the people of Eldorado, everyone he meets is unfortunate and miserable. But Candide seems to be unmoved by the force of his own statement when he naively reckons that the smiling couple is happy. Having had plenty of experiences to cultivate a healthy skepticism, Candide remains stupidly optimistic. Chapter 27 Flawed Logic 12: The absurdities which result from Candide's frequent misuse of language has great comic effect. He asks Pangloss how he was hanged and yet is still alive. He asks the Baron's son how he did not kill him. Both questions seem backward in the sense that Candide emphasizes actions that, in the real world, have the irreversible effect of death: killing, and hanging. Chapter 28 Flawed Logic 13: Like Candide, Pangloss misuses language, producing unintentionally absurd effects. He tells Candide that he was hung and dissected. Although he obviously survived each affair, the finality these verbs communicate when used in the past tense produces a comical breech between his version of events and reality. Thus the gravity of being hung and dissected is entirely undermined; instead of being painful or tragic events, they are amusing. The surgeon's wife superstitiously tells her husband that he should know better than to dissect people possessed by the devil. She tells him to fetch a priest for an exorcism. Because of her ridiculous superstition, the surgeon's wife looks for the most fantastic and implausible explanation for what was simply an unsuccessful hanging. Chapter 30 Flawed Logic 14: Pangloss admitted earlier that he was always miserable and never believed in optimism. At the end of Candide, however, he offers another pathetic argument in favor of optimism. He cites the necessity of events in Candide's life, saying they were responsible for his present happiness. But the chaotic events of Candide's life defy any logical ordering according to cause and effect. Chapter 3 Hypocrisy 1: The orator tells Candide he deserves to starve because Candide does not know whether the Pope is the Antichrist. Just before, the orator had been addressing a crowd about the virtues of charity. Chapter 5 Hypocrisy 2: Jacques the Anabaptist is kind enough to rescue the drowning sailor even though the sailor hit Jacques. When Jacques gets pulled into the water from the effort of rescuing the sailor, the sailor leaves him to drown. Jacques saved Pangloss's life when he paid for Pangloss's cure. When Candide has an opportunity to help Jacques and save him from drowning, he reasons that Jacques was meant to drown. Chapter 6 Hypocrisy 3: The Spanish Inquisition was Spain's political tool to rout out heretics and usurpers. Officially sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church, the Inquisition relied on practices such as torture and confiscation of property to terrorize its victims and get false confessions. Christianity advocates the virtues of charity, forgiveness and love. Official policies and practices of the Inquisition were anything but charitable or loving. Chapter 9 Hypocrisy 4: Don Issachar was a court banker and influential merchant. Nevertheless, because he was Jewish, his body is thrown in the sewer. The grand Inquisitor, who burned people at the stake, was given all the respect of a proper burial. Chapter 10 Hypocrisy 5: A reverend Franciscan father steals money from Cunégonde, while a Benedictine friar swindles the threesome out of a good horse. These churchmen have little integrity. Chapter 11 Hypocrisy 6: While participating in the carnage of war, not one Moroccan neglects to perform his five daily prayers, which are spaced throughout the day. The coupling of Christian prayer with war is ironic, and reminiscent of the Bulgarians' and the Abares' praise of god for their battles. Chapter 12 Hypocrisy 7: One Christian country employs the King of Morocco to destroy the merchant ships of another Christian country, a gesture that seems contrary to Christian principles. Chapter 14 Hypocrisy 8: Cacambo praises the government of Los Padres, which he aptly calls a "kingdom". But read between the lines and notice how Cacambo, as well as the narrator, inadvertently point out the inconsistencies in Jesuit practices. In South America, the Jesuits rebel against their European monarchies; in Europe the Jesuits act as their agents. Ironically, the Jesuits have established their own microcosmic monarchy in Paraguay. The natives "have nothing", and are forced to eat their gruel outside in the heat of the sun while high-ranking officers like the commandant enjoy the shade of beautiful arbors. Also noteworthy is the fact that the Jesuit fathers hold both religious and military titles, "the reverend father Commandant" for instance. Acting as militants, the Jesuits have tainted their roles as churchmen. The narrator underscores this with a mocking description of the Commandant, who wears a sword and a three-cornered hat, and his gown tucked up around him for more freedom of movement. Chapter 15 Hypocrisy 9: The Baron's son alludes to a homosexual relationship he had with Reverend Father Croust, the Jesuit superior. This is a comical jab at the inconsistencies between church doctrine and human action; homosexuality was at the time a sexual practice absolutely forbidden by the Church. The Baron's son predicts that the Spanish soldiers will be beaten and excommunicated from the church when the Jesuits triumph. In Europe, these Spanish soldiers would be praised, not excommunicated. Chapter 18 Hypocrisy 10: The wise man of Eldorado tells Candide they have just one god. Instead of asking god for things through prayer, the people of Eldorado continuously offer their thanks to god. Everyone is a priest. Contrast this with the factious religious battles waged in Europe. Monks and priests are always at odds, and the Church meddles in political affairs. Cacambo expects he will have to perform a ridiculous ritual in order to show deference to the King. A simple hug and a kiss are all that is required; for meeting with a king this is a refreshingly simple ceremony. Chapter 19 Hypocrisy 11: The slave points out how horribly the "descendants of Adam" treat each other, making the disparity between reality and theological or metaphysical doctrines painfully obvious. Chapter 22 Hypocrisy 12: After accepting Candide's bribe, the policeman says that if Candide was the worst of criminals, the policeman would think of Candide as the most honest of men. Chapter 24 Hypocrisy 13: Friar Giroflée's account of his miserable monastic life casts doubt on the integrity of religious institutions. Chapter 27 Hypocrisy 14: Like all of the opportunistic con men who descend on Candide in Paris, the Levantine captain seizes the chance to line his own pockets. He inflates the price of his galley slaves' freedom (though they were poor rowers). Candide encounters very few people who have any moral integrity. Chapter 28 Hypocrisy 15: The Baron's son confesses he was ignorant of the rules barring Christians from bathing naked with Muslims. But his real transgression was his unspoken homosexual act. In the broader context of Candide, this episode illustrates again the mismatch between human behavior and the edicts of the church. In fact, many of the convicts on the galley ship are churchmen who were punished for similar offenses. Chapter 30 Hypocrisy 16: Pangloss, Candide and Martin are inspired to argue about metaphysics and evil when they watch the parade of exiled religious and political figures. Then they learn that some Turkish officials were strangled and impaled. They wonder how religious and political institutions, which are built on particular moral codes, can create so much tyranny and violence. Chapter 1 Optimism 1: Pangloss's brand of Optimism caricatures the philosophy of Leibniz. According to Leibniz, god can imagine an infinite number of possible worlds. Being benevolent and good by definition, god would choose the best of those possible worlds. Leibniz says that men, as finite beings with limited awareness, cannot comprehend god's overarching plan. Therefore, from god's perspective, private miseries are somehow tolerable or perhaps necessary. As a Deist, Voltaire believed that god is an absentee creator. God set the universe in motion, but then he left it to run its own course. God is neither benevolent, nor does he intervene in the affairs of mankind. This may explain the chaotic and bizarre reversals of fortune in Candide; life really defies the neatly packaged explanations provided by metaphysical doctrines such as optimism. Chapter 3 Optimism 2: The narrator uses a Leibniz phrase, "sufficient reason", to explain how the bayonet was responsible for thousands of deaths. Despite his terrible experiences, Candide maintains that things happened as they did for a reason, and that all is for the best. He forgets the abuses he witnessed and suffered, and he sees Jacques' kindness as vindication of Pangloss's optimism. Chapter 4 Optimism 3: According to Pangloss, private misfortunes are directly proportional to the general good; the more people suffer, the better things are. Chapter 5 Optimism 4: When Pangloss broadcasts his philosophy of optimism to the earthquake survivors, he unwittingly places himself and Candide in danger. Pangloss's declaration lands him in a theological debate with a familiar of the Spanish Inquisition. In Pangloss's best of all possible worlds, the world cannot be any other way, and people cannot do otherwise. Eve had to eat the apple because she lived in a world which god chose as the best-one in which everything is predetermined. This view denies humans free will. But Adam and Eve were punished because they had free will. The familiar interprets Pangloss's views as heretical; without free will, original sin could not have existed. Chapter 6 Optimism 5: Candide is slow to give up his faith in Pangloss's philosophy of optimism. But after losing his friends and receiving a dreadful beating at an auto-da-fé, Candide can't reconcile his misfortunes with Pangloss's philosophy. Now that Pangloss is not around to explain away every tragedy, Candide wonders how the whole system works in light of the terrible things that happened to him. Chapter 12 Optimism 6: The old woman's story adds to the mountain of evidence against Pangloss's philosophy of optimism. She points out how ridiculous life is. Given all the aggregate misfortunes endured by the cast of Candide, Pangloss's theoretical system seems inapplicable to the real world. Chapter 13 Optimism 7: Candide shows signs of doubting the plausibility of optimism. After reflecting on what the old woman tells him, he ventures to say that there might be holes in Pangloss's theory. Chapter 16 Optimism 8: Candide wavers between affirming Pangloss's optimism and renouncing it, but this usually has no logical bearing on his circumstances. He is inconsolable to the point of sounding suicidal after he murders Cunégonde's brother. But when Candide is about to be eaten, he announces that all is well, which he qualifies with the wish that he did not have to succumb to cannibals. Chapter 17 Optimism 9: Candide hopes God will have pity on himself and Cacambo and help them reach Cayenne. He also tells Cacambo to trust their destiny to Providence. Considering all prior disasters and misfortunes, Candide naively thinks god will intervene on their behalf. From all appearances, god has heretofore abandoned Candide, if not the world, entirely. Candide thinks he has found the best of all possible worlds in Eldorado. The utopian society seems to fit that description, but Candide misses the absurdity of Dr. Pangloss' metaphysics entirely. Pangloss doggedly asserted that the miserable world of earthquakes, wars, and autos-da-fé was the best of all possible worlds. But Eldorado isn't meant to vindicate Pangloss's theory. As an example, Eldorado illustrates that things can be better. Therefore the best of all possible worlds is an absurd idea. Chapter 19 Optimism 10: Candide seems momentarily struck with the faculty of reason when he sees optimism for what it really is: the mania of thinking things are good when they are really quite bad. Chapter 20 Optimism 11: Martin amplifies the old woman's assertion that the world is quite a terrible place. Despite all of the hard evidence Martin provides, Candide is still optimistic because he hopes to see Cunégonde. But Candide's optimism yo-yo's according to factors like a full stomach. For Candide, optimism is more or less tenable according to his mood. Chapter 21 Optimism 12: Candide explores Martin's pessimism as an alternative to Pangloss's optimism, and he solicits Martin for his wisdom on various topics, including the nature of man. Candide gives a comically long inventory of vices to describe men, and he asks Martin if men have always been so evil. The question is so absurdly overstated that one might think Candide was being sarcastic; but Candide is too naïve to achieve sarcasm. Martin declares that humans are innately evil. Chapter 22 Optimism 13: According to the man of letters at the faro game, life is illogical, and full of confusion and quarrelling. He disagrees entirely with the theory that this is the best of all possible worlds. Like Martin and the old woman, he gives Candide a realistic view of the world and strengthens the argument against optimism. Chapter 24 Optimism 14: The philosophy of optimism grows increasingly less tenable to Candide considering the miserable stories of Paquette and Friar Giroflée. Martin's pessimism only amplifies Candide's doubts, although at times, Candide, like Pangloss, remains dumbly optimistic in the face of dire circumstances. Chapter 26 Optimism 15: The stories of the six dethroned kings are sobering. Even the most powerful and influential men are subject to absurd reversals of fortune. Despite Pangloss' attempts to explain away "private misfortunes" (Chapter 4, pg. 19), neither the metaphysics of optimism nor any theory can give an acceptable explanation for the cruelty of life. Chapter 27 Optimism 16: Candide feels comparatively more fortunate than the six dethroned kings. His personal, if temporary, good fortune provides reason enough to forget all prior disasters and agree once again with Dr. Pangloss. But his optimism and self satisfaction end prematurely when he finds out that Cacambo has lost all of the money, that Cunégonde is ugly and that she washes dishes for another dethroned prince in Turkey. Meanwhile Martin remains skeptical of Pangloss's philosophy and comfortable in his pessimism. Chapter 28 Optimism 17: Candide asks Pangloss if he still believes in optimism after all he had endured. If Candide was not so naïve and innocent, one might think his question to Pangloss was a sarcastic snipe. Chapter 30 Optimism 18: Pangloss admits that he never believed in optimism because he was always miserable. Pangloss confirms the suspicion that optimism is a counter-intuitive doctrine. Optimism ignores the dilemma of human suffering by making evil and misery part of a perfect world. Martin's pessimism overtly throws critical light on the philosophy of optimism, but it is itself a problematic doctrine, as the narrator calls Martin's principles "detestable" (145). Like optimism, pessimism is another form of fatalism, which leads to moral apathy. The Dervish gives fitting advice when he tells Pangloss to hold his tongue. Pangloss has the maddening habit of offering unsolicited and neat explanations for a messy world. Candide repeats his assertion that "we must cultivate our gardens" (149). What Voltaire intended by this cryptic statement is disputed. Within the context of Candide, it seems reasonable to conclude that cultivating one's garden is a pragmatic alternative to the theories and abstract notions of optimism, which have little bearing on life. The phrase can have both literal and metaphorical meanings. Chapter 1 Pride 1: 71 quarterings (in reality, quarterings are counted in multiples of four) would have been sufficient to prove noble lineage. A man is knighted with just sixteen quarterings (c.f. coat of arms and heraldry). Chapter 7 Pride 2: Cunégonde proudly declares she is a lady of honor. Being raped by a Bulgarian soldier only strengthens her virtue. Though her family is dead, and her castle destroyed, she insists she is still a Baroness. Now that she is the mistress of Don Issachar, Cunégonde makes sure to tell the Grand Inquisitor that she is of noble birth. The inquisitor tells her that such a lady should not be the property of a Jew, but he does not think it beneath her to be his own slave. Furthermore, he is willing to share Cunégonde with Don Issachar. Chapter 10 Pride 3: Cunégonde challenges the old woman to prove that she has suffered worse misfortunes. Cunégonde emphasizes that she was born with 71 quarterings but that she was also a kitchen wench. These competing and comically incongruous titles mock Cunégonde's pride. Chapter 13 Pride 4: The narrator notes that the Governor's haughty airs make him insufferable. The old woman reminds Cunégonde that in order to reappoint herself to a position as noble as a baroness, Cunégonde would do well to marry the Governor. Ironically, the old woman advises Cunégonde not to miss this opportunity to step up the social ladder just because she loves Candide. Chapter 14 Pride 5: The narrator hits three birds with one stone when he remarks that the German Commandant is haughty in a different way than Spaniards and Jesuits are haughty. The narrator's assumption that the reader already knows that Spaniards and Jesuits are proud is a comical jab at them as well as the Commandant. Chapter 15 Pride 6: The Baron forbids Candide to marry his sister. And, like his sister before him, he proudly mentions his family's 71 quarterings, hardly a relevant fact considering their present circumstances. It seems Candide does deserve to marry Cunégonde, considering that her stock has dropped in value ever since she was deflowered by a Bulgarian soldier. Candide naively thinks he deserves Cunégonde's hand in marriage because he did her the favor of liberating her from the Inquisitor and Don Issachar. But Cunégonde seemed content with her opulent life with Don Issachar. She remarked that his house was much more grand than the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh. Chapter 27 Pride 7: Though the sultan Achmet has been dethroned, he still requires a ridiculous gesture of deference from Cacambo and Candide as they board his ship. When Candide buys the Baron's son's freedom from the Levantine ship captain, Pangloss falls to Candide's feet in gratitude. The Baron's son is too proud to acknowledge Candide's generosity and he only gives a slight gesture of thanks and says he will reimburse Candide. Chapter 28 Pride 8: The Baron's son arrogantly overstates his case, saying that his relegation to a galley ship is the greatest injustice of the world, while he is indignant that his sister, a Baroness no less, is washing dishes for a has-been prince. Chapter 29 Pride 9: When the Baron's son sees Cunégonde washing towels and hanging them out to dry, he blanches. His pride cannot withstand seeing his sister the Baroness in such a lowly position. Candide offers to marry Cunégonde out of a sense of duty. Though Cunégonde is ugly, and without charm and a castle, the Baron's son proudly refuses to recognize Candide's gesture. Chapter 2 War 1: Candide's forced enlistment and maltreatment by the Bulgarian army underlines the miserable conditions of a war machine. Military life is servitude, and punishment is inflicted liberally. Chapter 3 War 2: The gay and festive descriptions of the battlefield are overstated at first; yet they end incongruously with the real and gruesome details of war. Voltaire may be referring to the Seven Years War between Prussia and the alliance between France, Russia, Austria, Saxony, and Sweden. The Bulgarians in Candide are Frederic the Great's Prussian army, and the Abares are the French. Both armies thank God for the carnage with Te Deums. The narrator calls the soldiers, who rape and disembowel young girls, heroes. International law commands the soldiers to burn villages. Chapter 4 War 3: After Pangloss describes the horrible scene at the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh's castle, he states he is pleased the Abares treated a Bulgarian barony the same way. War is horrific, but Pangloss finds satisfaction in the fact that both sides suffered equally. Jacques believes humans were not born to murder each other, but somehow they have become like wolves. He is the first in Candide to voice opposition to the practices of war. His observations, in contrast to those of Pangloss, seem levelheaded. Chapter 7 War 4: Cunégonde tells Candide that she struggled against the Bulgarian soldier who raped her because she did not know that murdering, slashing, raping and disemboweling the local populace was a customary practice during war. The soldier neglects to salute his captain and continues his sexual assault on Cunégonde. This offends the Bulgarian captain, not because he finds the soldier's rape and stabbing of Cunégonde disrespectful, but because the soldier should have interrupted his activities momentarily in order to give the captain his due respect. Chapter 10 War 5: Candide was not as successful a soldier as the narrator suggests here. He hid during battle with the Abares, and he was punished by the Bulgarian army more often than he was praised. References to the drilling procedures of the Bulgarian army may have been Voltaire's way of mocking Frederic the Great's Prussian army, known to be strict and meticulously ordered. Chapter 11 War 6: The heroes and heroines of Candide witness outbreaks of war wherever their misadventures take them. That men are universally brutal and murderous is itself notable, and this fact underscores the absurdity of Pangloss's optimism. Chapter 12 War 7: Cannibalism, like the body cavity searches performed by Moroccan pirates, or the burning of villages, is one of the absurd mandates of international law. Chapter 23 War 8: The English admiral's execution--another example of the ridiculous and inhumane practices of war emphasized in Candide--was based on a similar case which happened in England during Voltaire's lifetime. In Westphalia, a province of Germany, Candide lives in the castle of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh. Naïve, simple-minded, and impressionable, he is the illegitimate son of the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh's sister, who refused to marry Candide's father as he had only 71 quarterings. Because this castle has a door and windows, the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh is very powerful. He has all of the trappings of nobility. The dogs hanging about the stables can be assembled into a pack of hounds if need be; the men who take care of the horses can function as huntsmen, and the man in charge of the village parish is, for the Baron, the Grand Almoner. People of the village indulge the Baron by laughing at his stories. They call him "My Lord." The Baron's wife, carrying her 350-pound figure around with great dignity, is held in similar regard. Cunégonde is the Baron's attractive seventeen year old daughter, and the Baron's son takes after his great father. Pangloss is the tutor of the castle. He teaches a brand of philosophy called optimism, which holds that this is the best of all possible worlds, and that all occurrences are governed by the laws of cause and effect, and by necessary and sufficient reasons. "'Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches. Stones were formed to be quarried and to build castles; and My Lord has a very noble castle; the greatest Baron in the province should have the best house; and as pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all year round; consequently, those who have asserted all is well talk nonsense; they ought to have said that all is for the best.'" Chapter 1, pg. 4 Topic Tracking: Flawed Logic 1 Cunégonde sees Dr. Pangloss in sexual congress with her mother's waiting-maid, Paquette. Cunégonde wants try doing the same with Candide. The Baron discovers the two kissing, and Candide is kicked in the backside several times before he is thrown out. Candide wanders away from the best of all castles, sleeps in a field, and stops at an inn where he meets two soldiers. He is unaware of their designs to enlist him in their army. They say he is the proper height and stature for a soldier, which happens to be five feet tall, although most of the other Bulgarian soldiers are six feet tall. They ask Candide if he loves the King of the Bulgarians. Candide replies that he doesn't love the King of Bulgaria because he has not met him. Candide drinks to his health anyway. The soldiers then shackle him and take him back to their regiment. Training includes regular beatings with a stick. Candide decides to walk away from the regiment, reasoning that walking is a natural right for people. The Bulgarian soldiers who catch him are all six feet tall. As punishment for desertion, Candide can choose between twelve shots to his head or thirty-six beatings from every soldier in a regiment of two thousand. Candide doesn't want either because he reasons he has free will. But he is forced select one. After two rounds of beating, his nerves and muscles are exposed. He asks to be shot instead. The King of the Bulgarians happens by. The narrator calls the King a genius because he pardons Candide on the grounds that Candide is an inexperienced philosopher. Candide recovers. The King of the Bulgarians then goes to war with the King of the Abares. Topic Tracking: War 1 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 The beggar is Pangloss. Candide is incredulous. He doesn't understand how Pangloss could be reduced to this miserable condition. Candide's interest in Pangloss moves quickly to concern for Cunégonde. He thinks something terrible might have happened to Cunégonde as well. But Pangloss is tired and wants to rest and eat before he tells Candide what happened. Candide takes him to the stable of Jacques the Anabaptist and gives him food. Pangloss reports that Cunégonde is dead. Candide faints, recovers, and asks what happened to the best of all possible worlds. Candide naively wonders if Cunégonde died from the trauma of losing him when he was expelled from the Baron's castle. Actually, Pangloss explains, the Bulgarians disemboweled her. But first they smashed her father's head, sliced up her mother, and raped Cunégonde. Her brother was raped and disemboweled as well. The castle was left in pieces. At least, Pangloss states, the Abares gave a Bulgarian barony the same treatment. Candide faints again. He recovers. He is curious now about what happened to Pangloss. Candide demands to know the sufficient reasons, the causes and effects, for Pangloss's pitiful condition. Pangloss tells Candide that love is the sufficient reason. Pangloss waxes poetic describing the joys of love. Candide interjects that love is grand but the only thing love gave him was a kiss and twenty kicks in the back side. Pangloss expresses no bitterness when he tells Candide that love, in the form of Paquette, the Baroness's waiting-maid, gave him a venereal disease. Candide is skeptical: how could a great thing like love produce such horrible results? Pangloss explains that Paquette received the disease from a monk, who received it from a countess, and so on down the line, concluding with a companion of Christopher Columbus, who brought the disease back to Europe. Pangloss seems almost disappointed that he can't participate in this chain of giving because he will die soon. Candide says the devil is to blame for the disease. According to Pangloss, the disease was a necessary component of this best of all possible worlds, otherwise Europe would not have chocolate or cochineal (a red dye): "...if Columbus in an island of America had not caught the disease, which poisons the source of generation, and often indeed prevents generation, we should not have chocolate and cochineal" Chapter 4, pg. 17 Candide insists that Pangloss be cured. But Pangloss says this will only happen if he has money because being bled and having an enema require payment. Candide takes Pangloss to Jacques the Anabaptist who pays for Pangloss's treatment. Though he loses an eye and an ear, Pangloss is cured. Jacques the Anabaptist hires Pangloss as his bookkeeper. One day Jacques takes Pangloss and Candide-the narrator ironically calls them Jacques's philosophers-to Lisbon for a business trip. On the way, Jacques explains that he does not agree that this is the best of all possible worlds. He compares men and their warlike natures to wolves. "'Men,' said he, 'must have corrupted nature a little, for they were not born wolves, and they have become wolves. God did not give them twenty-four-pounder cannons or bayonets, and they have made bayonets and cannons to destroy each other." Chapter 4, pg. 18 Pangloss, a true optimist, sees the glass as half full. He explains that things are better when people suffer more. "...and private misfortunes make the public good, so that the more private misfortunes there are, the more everything is well." Chapter 4, pg. 19 Just outside of Lisbon, a terrible storm descends upon the ship. Topic Tracking: Flawed Logic 4 As the ship sinks, Jacques helps the crew, but an angry sailor hits Jacques and knocks him down. This makes the sailor fall out of the ship. Jacques rescues him, but Jacques fall in the water. The sailor lets Jacques drown. Candide wants to help but Pangloss, after philosophizing about causes and effects, persuades Candide that Jacques was meant to drown just before reaching Lisbon. Thus Candide should not rescue Jacques. Pangloss demonstrates this a priori. (A priori reasoning is based on theoretical evidence rather than experience.) The ship sinks. Pangloss's optimism is vindicated only to the extent that Candide, Pangloss, and the angry sailor survive. When Pangloss and Candide come ashore in Lisbon, the earth trembles violently, a tidal wave washes over the port, and fire engulfs the city. Thirty thousand people die. Pangloss is at a loss. He can't think of causes and effects to explain the disaster. Candide thinks it must be Judgment Day. On the other hand, the sailor whistles, loots the ruins, gets drunk, and pays for a prostitute, who the narrator calls "the first woman of good will". Pangloss tells the sailor his acts are contrary to universal reason; this was neither the time nor place for looting or renting prostitutes. The sailor scoffs at Pangloss. The sailor says he stomped on the crucifix many times before and nothing happened. Candide lies hurt under debris. Pangloss doesn't help but he does explain that an earthquake happened in Lima the year previously. He estimates that both earthquakes resulted from a similar cause, perhaps a subterranean bed of sulfur that connects Lima and Lisbon. Candide says this is probable, but that a more pressing issue was his need for wine and oil. Pangloss, disregarding Candide's pain, is offended that Candide expresses some doubt because Pangloss believes he has proven his case. As Pangloss is arguing, Candide passes out. After a couple of days of helping the survivors of the quake, Pangloss and Candide have dinner with some survivors. While the survivors cry on their bread, Pangloss reassures them that the earthquake happened for the best. A familiar of the Spanish Inquisition hears Pangloss and asks him if he believes in original sin. Pangloss waffles. The familiar supposes Pangloss does not believe in original sin. The familiar then signals one of his armed attendants. Topic Tracking: Flawed Logic 5 The leaders of Lisbon, whom the narrator ironically calls "wise", decide that the best way to prevent another earthquake is to hold an auto-da-fé to punish a small group of heretics they managed to round up. "It was decided by the university of Coimbre that the sight of several persons being slowly burned in great ceremony is an infallible secret for preventing earthquakes." Chapter 6, pg. 24 The chosen victims of this "splendid" ceremony were a Biscayan who allegedly married his godmother, two Jews who gave themselves away when they refused to eat pork, Pangloss, and Candide. Candide's only crime was that of listening to Pangloss when Pangloss was philosophizing. For a week, Pangloss and Candide are held in separate prison cells, which the narrator calls "extremely cool apartments". They are then dressed in the traditional garb for heretics punished in an auto-da-fé, san benitos, and paper miters. Candide's san benitos has upside down flames and devils missing claws and tails, while Pangloss's has flames rightside up and devils with claws and tails. This seems to have symbolic reference to the severity of punishment, for Candide is only to be severely beaten, while Pangloss is hanged. The group of heretics is marched through the ceremony during a "pathetic" sermon. The narrator notes the "lovely" music that accompanies the flogging Candide receives. With the exception of Pangloss, the three other heretics are burned at the stake. Candide watches while Pangloss is hanged. Another earthquake strikes Lisbon on the same day. Completely dejected and covered with blood, but absolved of his crimes by the Inquisition, Candide thinks how horrible this best of all possible worlds really is. But, instead of bemoaning the actual loss of Pangloss, Jacques and Cunégonde, Candide mulls over specific details of the misfortunes that meet his friends: why was Pangloss hung, why did Jacques have to drown just before reaching Lisbon and why did Cunégonde need to be disemboweled? "If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others?" Chapter 6, pg. 25 As Candide is fretting, an old woman tells him to have courage and asks him to follow her. Topic Tracking: Flawed Logic 6 Candide follows the old woman to a shack. He stays there alone for a few days. The old woman returns periodically to feed him and rub ointment on his wounds. One night she takes Candide to a house in the country. She leaves him sitting on a sofa in a room. Candide theorizes to himself that life is a series of dreams, and that he is having a good dream right now. The old woman returns with a magnificent lady hidden behind a veil, and she orders Candide to remove the veil. At first Candide thinks she looks like Cunégonde. And it is Cunégonde. Candide and Cunégonde faint. The old woman revives them, and leaves them to be alone. Candide concludes that Cunégonde was not really raped and disemboweled, as Pangloss had reported. Cunégonde, not at all trifled by this graphic reminder, confirms Pangloss's story, but she adds that death does not necessarily follow rape and disembowelment. Candide is baffled. Cunégonde wants to know what happened to Candide since he kissed her. Her bluntness is comical when she reminds him that the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh kicked him several times in the buttocks. Candide gathers his strength and tells her everything. Cunégonde cries when she hears what happened to Pangloss and Jacques the Anabaptist. Then she tells her story. Candide listens attentively and stares at her with lust. Cunégonde says that heaven sent the Bulgarians to her castle while she was asleep. She tells Candide how her mother was sliced to pieces and her father and brother killed by a Bulgarian soldier who was six feet tall-a seemingly trifling detail considering the brutality of the whole affair. The horror of witnessing the murders makes Cunégonde faint. The Bulgarian soldier confuses this as a sexual cue, and he rapes Cunégonde. This helps to revive her. She struggles and the soldier stabs her in her abdomen. With no tact, Candide interrupts her story, stating he hopes to see her scar. She assures him he will. She resumes her story. When a Bulgarian captain walks in, the soldier just continues raping Cunégonde. The captain is outraged that the soldier fails to salute his captain, so he kills the soldier while Cunégonde lies beneath him. The captain takes Cunégonde to his quarters. She performs menial duties for him. He thinks she is pretty. Cunégonde remarks that the captain was handsome and had nice skin, but he was not smart because Pangloss had not tutored him. These details seem petty, considering the ordeal she had just undergone. When the captain runs out of money he sells Cunégonde to a Jew named Don Issachar, a merchant and a great admirer of the ladies. Don Issachar wants to have sex with Cunégonde. She does a better job "resisting" than she did when she was raped by the Bulgarian soldier. She reasons she can still be a chaste and honorable woman in spite of the fact that she was raped. "[A] lady of honor may be raped once, but it strengthens her virtue." Chapter 7, pg. 30 The Jew takes Cunégonde to Portugal, thinking a change in location might make her more open to his advances. She tells Candide that Don Issachar's house was much better than the castle Thunder-ten-tronckh. In this regard, she seems to be satisfied where she is. One day at mass, the grand Inquisitor eyeballs Cunégonde. He tells her in private that, being a woman of the noble class, she should not belong to a Jew. The Inquisitor offers to buy her for his own pleasure. Don Issachar refuses. The Inquisitor threatens to conduct an auto-da-fé. Don Issachar allows the Inquisitor to enjoy his house and Cunégonde four days a week, but they quarrel for six months over the exact terms of the agreement. All the while Cunégonde manages to remain chaste. Cunégonde expresses relief when she tells Candide that finally the Inquisitor decided to take action. To intimidate the Jew further, and to prevent more earthquakes, the Inquisitor arranges an auto-da-fé. He invites Cunégonde to watch. She is honored. She recalls that she had a great seat, and that refreshments were served between mass and the execution. But the executions were appalling. She fainted when she recognized Pangloss, but nothing could match the horror of seeing Candide naked. And his skin looked even lovelier than that of the Bulgarian captain. She wonders how such things can occur, and she questions the validity of Pangloss's optimism. "Pangloss deceived me cruelly when he said that all is for the best in the world." Chapter 7, pg. 32 She asks her old woman to go and take care of Candide. Cunégonde is happy that they are reunited. Don Issachar arrives to enjoy his allotted time with Cunégonde. Topic Tracking: Flawed Logic 7 Don Issachar has a short temper. The narrator emphasizes this, saying no other Jew since the time of Babylon was as short-tempered as Don Issachar. Don Issachar gets really mad when he discovers Candide and he must share Cunégonde with yet another man. Candide kills Don Issachar in self-defense. The narrator describes this scene in terms reminiscent of an adventure novel or a romantic tale. Cunégonde is confounded. Her comfortable arrangement is now messed up. The police will find out. Candide laments Pangloss's hanging and he naively thinks that, as a philosopher, Pangloss would surely know what to do. Candide turns to the old woman instead. The Inquisitor arrives. Candide's instincts are impeccable. Without the aid of the old woman's advice, he predicts the Inquisitor will have him burned. Candide, who the narrator once called "gentle", tells himself he is in the mood to kill. He quickly stabs the Inquisitor. Cunégonde remarks that Candide's actions seem out of character. Candide gallantly attributes this to the unusual circumstances. "'when a man is in love, jealous, and has been flogged by the Inquisition, he is beside himself.'" Chapter 9, pg. 35 The old woman takes charge and orders "the brave Candide" to prepare three horses for immediate departure. They must get going quickly, although she has only one buttock. Cunégonde collects her jewels. The old woman notes that the weather is perfect for traveling (although the weather is the least of their worries). As they ride through the night, the Holy Hermandan, a Spanish brotherhood organized for policing purposes, discovers the murdered Don Issachar, who is thrown into a sewer, and the murdered Inquisitor who is buried in a grand church. Candide, Cunégonde, and the old woman have slept at an inn. A reverend father Franciscan has stolen all Cunégonde's money and jewels. Candide wonders why the father didn't leave behind some money so they could continue traveling. Ironically, after just being freed from her masters, Cunégonde wonders how she will find other Jews or Inquisitors to support her. A Benedictine friar cheats them out of what was really an expensive horse, and they depart. They arrive at Cadiz. A fleet prepares to sail to Paraguay to crush a Jesuit rebellion. Candide demonstrates to them that he is a great soldier by performing a Bulgarian military drill. Impressed, the Spanish make him captain of an infantry company. Two servants, Cunégonde, and the old woman go with him. On board, they discuss Pangloss's philosophy. Candide naïvely hopes that the new world will fulfill the promise of optimism. "'We are going to a new world,' said Candide, 'and no doubt it is there that everything is for the best; for it must be admitted that one might lament a little over the physical and moral happenings of our own world.'" Chapter 10, pg. 38 Cunégonde is not convinced. She has lost hope due to her many misfortunes. The old woman boasts that she has had a more terrible life. Cunégonde and Candide scoff at this: "'[U]nless you have been raped by two Bulgarians, stabbed twice in the belly, have had two castles destroyed, two fathers and mothers murdered before your eyes, and have seen two of your lovers flogged in an auto-da-fé, I do not see how you can surpass me; moreover, I was born a Baroness with seventy-two quarterings and I have been a kitchen wench.'" Chapter 10, pg. 39 The old woman boasts that they would change their minds if only they got a look at her backside because one buttock, as she has mentioned twice already, is missing. This interests Candide and Cunégonde immediately. She starts to tell her story. Topic Tracking: Flawed Logic 8 The old woman tells Candide and Cunégonde that she was the daughter of the Princess of Palestrina and Pope Urban X. This is an amusing jab at the papacy, because for this to happen Pope Urban X must have violated his oath of celibacy. In her youth, the old woman was very beautiful, and she reminds her audience of this repeatedly. Her naked beauty inspired ecstasy even among her waiting-maids. She was engaged to a prince, but he was poisoned just before they were married. Her mother then decided to sail to their estate in Gaeta, but their ship was boarded by pirates. The old woman comically observes that the Pope's soldiers were acting in character when they immediately surrendered to the pirates. All the men were stripped and searched, and the women given body cavity searches, a detail the old woman lingers over when she muses that searches such as these are given according to international law. The pirates took the old woman and her mother to Morocco, where they were to be sold as slaves. The old woman reminds Cunégonde and Candide of her now lost ravishing beauty, and of how difficult it was for a princess of such high birth to be kidnapped by pirates. She tells them how she lost her virginity to a captain of the ship. As an afterthought, she notes that these dreadful events are commonplace. She goes on to tell how she arrived in Morocco, where fifty civil wars were raging. Her mother and the ladies of honor were all cut to pieces. The captain protects her, but he dies along with everyone else in a gruesome blood bath. The old woman passes out on a pile of corpses. She wakes up with an Italian man lying on her, bemoaning his inability to have sex. Topic Tracking: Hypocrisy 6 Although a man is lying on top of her, moaning about his impotency, the old woman was overjoyed at hearing him speak Italian, her native language. She reassures him that people have met worse fates. The man is a eunuch, and, coincidentally, he was a singer for the old woman's now deceased mother. The eunuch nurses the old woman back to health and admires her beauty. The eunuch had been sent by a Christian country to give the King of Morocco ammunition to wipe out the trading vessels of another Christian power. He promises to take her back to Italy, but he sells her to a government official in Algiers. The old woman then catches the plague. "'Imagine the situation of a Pope's daughter aged fifteen, who in three months had undergone poverty and slavery, had been raped nearly every day, had seen her mother cut into four pieces, had undergone hunger and war, and was now dying of the plague in Algiers.'" Chapter 12, pg. 46 Everyone around her dies of the plague. An Aga, a high ranking official of the Janizaries during the Ottoman empire, buys the old woman. (The Janizaries were a division of the Turkish military during the Ottoman Empire) The Aga stationed his harem and his soldiers on an island in order to fight the Russians. The Russians capture the Aga and starve out the twenty soldiers who protect his harem. The soldiers eat the two eunuchs. Hungry again, and according to the suggestion of the Imam-a Muslim religious leader-the soldiers cut off a buttock from each of the women, including the old woman. After the Russians kill the soldiers, a French doctor heals the mutilated women, telling them that cannibalism was international law during wartime. The old woman then becomes a servant for a string master. All the while, she tells Candide and Cunégonde, she never forgot her original station in life as daughter to a Pope. She tells Candide and Cunégonde that life is absurdly painful. She wanted to kill herself many times. She curses her love for life. It forces her to endure her misery. She wistfully recalls the twenty people who did manage to kill themselves. "'[I]s there anything sillier than to desire to bear continually a burden one always wishes to throw on the ground; to look upon oneself with horror and yet to cling to oneself; in short to caress the serpent which desires us until he has eaten our heart?'" Chapter 12, pg. 49 The old woman tells Candide and Cunégonde to hear the stories of their fellow passengers. If any of them do not hate life, Candide and Cunégonde can toss her overboard. Topic Tracking: Hypocrisy 7 The passengers affirm the old woman's theory. Candide boldly declares that if Pangloss were present, Candide would make a few objections to his philosophy of optimism. They arrive in Buenos Aires. The governor has a haughty demeanor to match his long string of Spanish surnames. Unfortunately, Candide announces his intent to marry Cunégonde and the governor seizes an opportunity to beat him to the punch. While Candide is inspecting his troops, the Governor of Buenos Aires asks Cunégonde to marry him. She asks for fifteen minutes to think it over; the old woman reminds Cunégonde that though she has seventy-two quarterings, beggars can't be choosers. The old woman then praises the Governor's moustache, which he is in the habit of twisting. The old woman sees a Spanish ship in the harbor in hot pursuit of the Inquisitor's murderers. She tells Candide to flee. Topic Tracking: Optimism 7 Candide and Cacambo, a valet Candide procured in Cadiz, leave Buenos Aires. Candide is distressed that he must leave Cunégonde behind. He observes innocently that the governor won't be able to marry them the next day. Cacambo, who is a little more worldly, assures Candide that women have ways of getting by. Candide misses the implication that, at the very least, Cunégonde will be able to prostitute herself in some fashion. Cacambo suggests they fight for the Jesuits instead. He rallies Candide's spirits, telling him that adventures are good things to have. Cacambo knows Los Padres, the government of the Jesuits, and he ironically sings their praises. "'Los Padres have everything and the people have nothing; 'tis the masterpiece of reason and justice. For my part, I know nothing so divine as Los Padres who here make war on Kings of Spain and Portugal and in Europe act as their confessors; who here kill Spaniards and at Madrid send them to Heaven[.]'" Chapter 14, pg. 55 When they reach the Jesuit camp, Candide and Cacambo are treated with hostility, but when the German commandant discovers that Candide is a German, he invites Candide to enjoy the commandant's lush arbor while the heat of the sun beats down on the Paraguayans. When Candide tells the commandant that he was born in the castle Thunder-ten-tronckh in "filthy" Westphalia, the two Germans recognize each other; the commandant is Cunégonde's brother, the Baron's son who did not die from the Bulgarian invasion after all. The reunion is joyful. Candide sweetly notes how happy Pangloss would be if he had not been hanged, an observation which seems to go without saying. Candide tells the Baron's son that Cunégonde is still alive. Topic Tracking: Hypocrisy 8 The Baron's son tells Candide that after seeing his parents murdered and Cunégonde raped, he was left for dead. Just before burying him, a Jesuit discovered he was alive. The Jesuit nursed him back to health. In no time he felt as though nothing happened. He became a Jesuit and had a homosexual relationship, which he describes as a "most tender friendship", with the superior of the house. The Baron's son goes to Paraguay to do missionary work for the Reverend Father who also happens to be a General. The Baron's son becomes a colonel and a priest. The Baron's son remarks how grand it will be when he and Candide march into Buenos Aires as victors over the Spanish. But when Candide tells him he plans to marry Cunégonde, the Baron's son flies into a rage and strikes Candide. He declares that only a man of noble birth shall marry his sister. Candide stabs the Baron's son in self-defense. He cries as he withdraws his sword. Candide feels so bewildered; how could someone so gentle like himself have killed two priests and a Jew? Cacambo dresses Candide in the Baron's son's clothes and they make their escape. Topic Tracking: Hypocrisy 9 Candide and Cacambo come to a meadow. The old woman's philosophy seemed to have made an impression on Candide for he tells Cacambo that he fails to see the reason for living anymore because he will never see Cunégonde again. He also wonders what the Journal de Trevoux will say, a trifling worry considering he might never see his true love again. (The Journal de Trevoux was a Jesuit journal which expressed viewpoints to which Voltaire was opposed.) Candide and Cacambo see two naked girls chased by two monkeys who bite the girls' buttocks. Candide, feeling chivalrous, shoots and kills the two monkeys. Candide thinks that killing the monkeys will make up for the three previous murders he committed. He notes that the girls might be of use to them in this unknown territory. When the girls weep and hold the dead monkeys to their breasts, Candide is baffled. Cacambo tells Candide that there is nothing unusual about taking a monkey as one's lover: "'[Y]ou are surprised by everything; why should you think it so strange that in some countries there should be monkeys who obtain ladies' favours? They are quarter men, as I am a quarter Spaniard.'" Chapter 16, pg. 64 Candide thinks this is the kind of coupling which results in the fauns and satyrs of ancient times. Cacambo astutely notes that Candide now knows they are true instead of fables. Candide and Cacambo are taken hostage by the Oreillons, the natives of the country. The Oreillons celebrate because they are about eat a Jesuit. Though Candide feels utterly dejected, he concedes that all is still well in the world; he remarks, nonetheless, how unfortunate it is that he has to lose Cunégonde and be eaten by cannibals. Candide would like the Oreillons to know how unchristian cannibalism is, though the Oreillons are not likely Christians. By this point, Candide might remind himself how unchristian true Christians have hitherto behaved. Cacambo speaks the Oreillons's language. He convinces them that Candide just killed a Jesuit, and therefore they should set him free. In his comically absurd speech Cacambo, admits that it is right to want to kill one's neighbor, but not one's friends. "'If we do not exert the right of eating our neighbor, it is because we have other means of making good cheer[.]'" Chapter 16, pg. 65 Cacambo suggests to the Oreillons that because Candide just murdered a Jesuit, he is their friend. Cacambo flatters the Oreillons, saying they are much too reasonable and morally upright to kill an enemy of the Jesuits. The Oreillons confirm Cacambo's story. They release Candide and Cacambo. Candide decides now that the Oreillons are really upright citizens, and that the state of nature is actually quite nice. He feels lucky. Topic Tracking: Flawed Logic 9 Cacambo and Candide leave the Oreillon territory. Cacambo tells Candide he wants to take the shortest road to Europe because the new world is just as terrible as the old one. Candide could not agree more. Candide rules out staying in Paraguay or going back to Westphalia or Lisbon: it's too dangerous. But he doesn't want to leave Cunégonde in South America. They decide to try and find the country of Cayenne. They travel, their horses die, and they almost starve. They arrive at a magnificent country called Eldorado. Eldorado is a glorious utopian society, where everything is designed for purposes of utility, beauty and pleasure. The streets are littered with jewels and gold. Some children in Eldorado play quoits with the gems and toss them to the ground when they finish. Candide supposes they have been taught well since they don't keep the gold and jewels to themselves. Meanwhile, Candide and Cacambo greedily collect some of the plentiful stuff. The inhabitants of Eldorado are all happy and profoundly generous. They come to an inn. The hosts serve them an exotic, lavish meal, which the government of Eldorado pays for. Being part Peruvian, Cacambo translates for Candide. Everyone laughs when Candide and Cacambo try to pay with the pebbles and mud of Eldorado. Candide and Cacambo are amazed. Candide notes that Eldorado must be the world in which all is well. "'[I]n spite of what Dr. Pangloss said, I often noticed that everything went very ill in Westphalia.'" Chapter 17, pg. 72 Candide and Cacambo discuss Eldorado's history and culture with a wise man who is one hundred and seventy-two years old. Eldorado is a remnant of the Incan Empire in Peru, the one Sir Walter Raleigh tried to find. The people of Eldorado vow never to leave. Their isolation protects them from the greedy European conquistadors. They have only one god, to whom they continuously offer thanks, and everyone is a priest. "'What! Have you no monks to teach, to dispute, to govern, to intrigue and to burn people who do not agree with them?'" Chapter 18, pg. 75 Candide is amazed that such a civilization exists. "'[I]f our friend Pangloss had seen Eldorado, he would not have said that the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh was the best of all that exists on earth; certainly a man should travel.'" Chapter 18, pg. 75-76 Candide and Cacambo meet the King of Eldorado. Cacambo asks how he is to greet the king. Should they perform such ridiculous rituals as falling on their faces or licking dust off the furniture? The King only requires a hug, and a kiss on the cheek. They are shown the town, which is impressive and modern. There are no courts and no prisons. They see a large palace of sciences. They have supper with the king who is charming and witty. They stay for a month. Admitting that Eldorado is better than the best of all possible worlds in Westphalia, Candide declares that he still misses Cunégonde. Tempted by their vanity and greed, Candide and Cacambo muse that going back to Europe with just twelve sheep laden with gold and jewels would make them rich. They would fear no one, impress everyone, and get Cunégonde back as well. The King thinks they are making a mistake, but he says that men are free, so he can't make them stay. Eldorado's expert scientists make an expensive machine to comically hoist Candide and Cacambo out of the isolated country. They take 102 red sheep laden with gold and jewels with them, and they head for Cayenne. There they will figure out how to get Cunégonde back. Candide and Cacambo are happy to be on their way back to Europe where they will be rich and powerful. Candide carves the name of Cunégonde in a tree (a cliché in the romantic novels of Voltaire's time). They travel for one hundred days, and lose one hundred sheep. Candide observes that the really good things in life are not gold and jewels but virtue and seeing Cunégonde. They arrive in the Dutch colony of Surinam, and meet a half-naked Negro slave with one hand and one leg. The slave tells them he only gets a pair of underpants twice a year. His master, Monsieur Vanderdendur, cut off his hand when his finger got caught in the grindstone in a sugar mill. Monsieur Vanderdendur cut off his leg when he ran away. All of this so Europeans can have sugar, the slave says bitterly. When his mother sold him to white men, she told him to thank and worship the fetishes, objects believed to have magical powers by primitive people, because they will make him happy. She says he should be honored to be a slave. He repeats what the Dutch missionaries taught him. Everyone is the child of Adam. He guesses everyone to be second cousins, but he emphasizes how everyone treats one another so viciously. "'Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less miserable than we are[.]'" Chapter 19, pg. 82 The slave's story disgusts Candide. Candide cries out that things are just too bad to continue believing in Pangloss's philosophy of optimism. 'What is optimism?' said Cacambo. 'Alas!' said Candide, 'it is the mania of maintaining that everything is well when we are wretched.'" Chapter 19, pg. 83 Candide learns from a Spanish captain that Cunégonde is the mistress of the Governor of Buenos Aires. Candide is stunned. He tells Cacambo to get Cunégonde and the old woman, and to meet him in Venice. Candide hires Monsieur Vanderdendur, the owner of the Negro slave, to sail to Venice. A testament to Candide's naiveté, he pays increasingly more money each time Monsieur Vanderdendur raises his fees. Monsieur Vanderdendur sails off with Candide's remaining two sheep laden with treasure, and he leaves Candide behind. When Candide takes his case to a crooked Dutch judge, he loses even more money. Candide becomes quite depressed. "The malevolence of men revealed itself to his mind in all its ugliness[.]" Chapter 19, pg. 86 Candide advertises that he will provide passage to Bordeaux to any applicant who can prove he is the most miserable. Many men tell Candide their stories, and he chooses Martin, an aging academic who was abused by his family and persecuted by preachers in Surinam for his suspected heresy. Candide speculates that Pangloss would be hard pressed to support his philosophy of optimism if he had heard all the pathetic stories. Topic Tracking: Hypocrisy 11 Candide and Martin talk about the nature of evil during the voyage. They have much to say. Martin is very pessimistic, while Candide is still bolstered by the prospect of seeing Cunégonde again. He feels particularly optimistic when his belly is full. Martin declares that he is a Manichaean, someone who believes that the material world is fundamentally evil. "'I confess that when I consider this globe, or rather this globule, I think that God has abandoned it to some evil creature[.]'" Chapter 20, pg. 90 Martin gives quite a number of examples, which seem to thoroughly support this view. Candide objects, saying that there is some good in the world. But Martin says that he has never seen it. Their ship happens upon two other ships at battle with each other. Candide's ship gets close so that every passenger can enjoy watching the killing. One ship sinks, many sailors die, and Martin points out to Candide that the gruesome affair further proves his point. Candide confesses he is right. Candide spies one of his red sheep floating in the water, which he retrieves. The sinking ship was that of Monsieur Vanderdendur. Candide maintains there is justice in the world after all. Martin disagrees because so many innocent sailors died as well. Candide thinks that his recovery of one sheep is a sign that he will see Cunégonde again. Martin tells Candide about France. He describes the French as a ridiculous people--mostly they have sex, gossip, and speak nonsense. Martin stayed in Paris for awhile and was robbed and thrown into jail. Candide is not interested in going to Paris. He invites Martin to accompany him to Venice by way of France. Martin accepts, saying that only the wealthy are welcome in Venice, and that he will follow Candide because he has money. Candide asks Martin if he believes the story of the flood in the Bible. Martin isn't convinced. He thinks the world was made to drive them mad. He isn't surprised at all by Candide's story about the ladies who loved monkeys. Candide wonders if mankind has always been so pathetic: "'Do you think,' said Candide, 'that men have always massacred each other, as they do today? Have they always been liars, cheats, traitors, brigands, weak, flighty, cowardly, envious, gluttonous, drunken, grasping, and vicious, bloody, backbiting, debauched, fanatical, hypocritical, and silly?'" Chapter 21, pg. 95 Martin muses that men can't change because they are innately evil. Candide counters with the argument that men have free will. They reach Bordeaux. Candide wants to go straight to Venice. He gives his sheep to the Academy of Sciences, which awards a prize to a man who explains why the sheep was red. Candide and Martin meet travelers who are on their way to Paris. Their enthusiasm convinces Candide to see Paris. Candide gets sick when he arrives. His conspicuous wealth attracts unsolicited and disingenuous doctors, attendants, and card players. Candide receives treatment, which makes him worse. A clerk announces that Candide will not be given a proper burial if he doesn't accept the religious practices in vogue at the time. Martin throws the clerk out, and Candide gets better. The sly abbé from Périgord takes Candide to the theatre. Someone says the play is very bad because the author does not believe in innate ideas. (John Locke, admired by Voltaire, believed people acquire knowledge through experience. Descartes, on the other hand, held that people were born with certain innate ideas). Candide wants to meet the actress who plays the Queen of England. He innocently wonders how he should behave around a queen of England, although she is just an actress playing the queen. The abbé tells him that Parisians respect queens if they are pretty but throw them in the sewer if they are dead. Candide is a little shocked. The abbé takes Candide to the house of the Marquise de Parolignac to play faro (a card game). The Marquise cheats Candide out of more money, a share of which goes to the abbé. After the card game, a man of letters talks about writing tragedies. Candide is transfixed by the man's philosophical tone. He reminds Candide of Pangloss. Candide asks him if he agrees that all is for the best. The man says, to the contrary, he believes that life is "an eternal war" (104). The Marquise de Parolignac steals the diamonds Candide wears on his fingers while she seduces him. The abbé orchestrates a meeting in an unlit room with a woman who claims to be Cunégonde. Fooled, Candide gives money to the imposter. The abbé has Candide and Martin arrested on the grounds that they look suspicious. Martin wises up to the abbé's scheming and suggests that Candide bribe the police officer. The police officer accepts the bribe after telling them that all strangers are arrested in France. They are taken to Dieppe where Candide and Martin board a Dutch ship destined for England. Topic Tracking: Flawed Logic 10 Candide and Martin approach the coast of England. Candide wonders if people in England are as crazy as they are in France. Martin supposes that the English are crazy in different ways. Candide and Martin reach Portsmouth and watch a public execution of an English admiral. Candide learns that the admiral did not kill enough people. The execution is supposed to inspire others of similar rank to kill more people. Candide is once again horrified by the state of the world. He demands to be taken to Venice immediately. After getting over his shock and confusion, Candide regains his optimism when he reaches Venice. He revises Pangloss' characteristic refrain that all is well, saying instead that things are as good they get. When he reaches Venice, Candide cannot find Cacambo and Cunégonde. He falls into a depression and Martin convinces him that the world is indeed a horrible place. "It would have been better to stay in the Paradise of Eldorado instead of returning to this accursed Europe. How right you are, my dear Martin! Everything is illusion and calamity!" Chapter 24, pg. 112 Candide sees a friar and a young girl who look happy. He remarks that at least they are happy. Martin guesses that they are just as miserable as everyone else. Candide asks them to dinner to find out. The young girl is Paquette, the Baroness's waiting-maid who gave Pangloss a venereal disease. Paquette confirms Martin's suspicions. Her life has been terrible ever since she was forced to leave the Baron's castle. She became the mistress to a doctor who cured her venereal disease. The doctor's wife got jealous and beat Paquette every day. The doctor poisoned his wife, and Paquette was thrown in prison. The judge released her so she could be his mistress. When a new mistress replaced her, the judge threw her out. She became a prostitute. Paquette complains bitterly, and she tells Candide that she can only look forward to old age and a dunghill. Candide protests that she appeared to be happy. Paquette says looking happy is part of a prostitute's job. Paquette's friend, Friar Giroflée is just as miserable. His parents forced him to become a friar so that his older brother would inherit more money. He hates the monastic life and his fellow churchmen. The prior takes most of his money. The friar spends the rest of his money on prostitutes. When he goes home he feels like smashing his head against the wall. Paquette and Friar Giroflée prove that Martin guessed correctly. Candide gives Paquette and Friar Giroflée some money, thinking this will make them happy. Martin thinks the money will make them more unhappy. Candide muses that his chances of meeting Cunégonde again are good because he was reunited with his sheep and Paquette. Whatever the outcome, Martin doubts that Cunégonde will make Candide happy. Martin says that experience proves that life is miserable. Candide points out that the singing gondoliers must be happy. Martin replies that life is miserable whatever one's position, whether it be that of the Doge (a Venetian duke), or that of a gondolier. Candide tells Martin that Lord Pococurante, a Venetian noble, is rumored to be happy all the time. Martin says that he would like to meet this rare individual. Topic Tracking: Flawed Logic 11 Candide and Martin go to the lavish and ornate palace of Lord Pococurante. He is polite but not friendly. Two young girls serve Candide and Martin chocolate drinks. Pococurante enjoys the sexual favors of the two girls because he finds Venetian women tiresome, but the young girls are starting to bore him as well. In fact, many things bore Lord Pococurante. He finds no pleasure in his art collection, which includes two Raphaels he bought in order to impress people. He thinks music and the opera are tiresome, and he delivers scathing reviews of Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid. He finds little merit in the works of Horace. He only reads for pleasure. Martin agrees with Pococurante. Candide is shocked. "Candide, who had been taught never to judge everything for himself, was greatly surprised by what he heard[.]" Chapter 25, pg. 122 Pococurante is equally disgusted with the theatre and the sciences. He qualifies his praise of the English and their love for liberty, saying they are too politically passionate. He condemns Milton's Paradise Lost. Candide fears that Pococurante will talk nastily about the German poets. Martin wryly tells Candide this would not be a bad idea. Though Candide is unnerved by this attack on the classics, he is secretly impressed with Pococurante's cynicism. He thinks Pococurante is a happy man. Martin thinks Pococurante's bored hedonism is a far cry from happiness. Candide thinks happiness can be gained from fault-finding. Martin says this is contradictory. "'[I]s there not pleasure in criticizing, in finding faults where other men think they see beauty?' 'That is to say,' answered Martin, 'that there is pleasure in not being pleased.'" Chapter 25, pg. 125 Candide and Martin go back to their hotel. After some weeks, and no news from Cunégonde or Cacambo, Candide grows more depressed. Martin and Candide go to dinner with some guests from their hotel. Candide is pulled aside by Cacambo. He tells Candide he is the servant to one of the guests, and that Cunégonde is in Constantinople. Candide is overwhelmed and overjoyed. Even more terrific is the novelty of dining with the six guests who turn out to be dethroned kings. Of great note to Candide was how royalty could be cast off and suffer such absurd and humiliating circumstances. Fate was cruel to everyone, it seemed, and these men had taken particularly hard falls. A servant tells one of the kings that his credit is no longer good at the hotel. The servant then deserts him. The other deposed kings offer the king a bit of money, but Candide gives the king a diamond. Candide's generosity, despite his lowly status, surprises the rest of the kings. A group of queens who met similar fates enter the restaurant as Candide leaves the table. He thinks only of Cunégonde. Cacambo secures passage to Constantinople for Candide and Martin on the Sultan Achmet's boat. Candide and Martin must kneel before "his miserable highness" (132) as they board, even though he has been dethroned. En route, Candide reflects on the remarkable dinner he and Martin had with the six dethroned kings. Considering someone like himself can be charitable to a king, Candide concludes that things are, for him at least, going well. Besides, he was on his way to see Cunégonde. Candide is inclined to agree, once again, with Pangloss. All is well, after all. Martin is, as always, impassive; he sees nothing extraordinary in the kings' stories, considering what he and Candide have already been through. Candide learns that Cunégonde and the old woman are servants for a poor dethroned prince, and that both the Governor of Buenos Aires and a pirate took all of Cacambo's gold and jewels from Eldorado. Even worse, Cunégonde was now ugly. Candide proclaims he will love her anyway. He feels loyal to her. But he does think it a shame that she has lost her looks. Considerably deflated by the prospect of an anticlimactic reunion, Candide's mood turns sour. He asks Martin who is to be pitied more, one of the dethroned kings or himself. Martin replies that it is impossible for him to know. Candide thinks that Pangloss would know if he were still alive. "'I do not know,' said Martin, 'what scales your Pangloss would use to weigh the misfortunes of men and to estimate their sufferings. All I presume is that there are millions of men on earth a hundred times more to be pitied than King Charles Edward, the Emperor Ivan, and the Sultan Achmet.'" Chapter 27, pg. 134 Candide buys Cacambo's freedom from the sultan. They arrive at the Black Sea and Candide, Martin, and Cacambo catch a ride on a galley ship to the shores of Propontis, a sea in Turkey, to find Cunégonde even though she is ugly. Two of the galley rowers get beaten often. Candide recognizes them as Pangloss and the Baron's son. Like most of the miraculous reunions that occur in Candide, this one is ecstatic and exaggerated. The Baron's son shows no hard feelings toward Candide for stabbing him, while Candide addresses Pangloss as the most profound metaphysician in Germany, slightly revising Pangloss's earlier title as "the greatest philosopher in the province, and therefore the whole world" (Chapter 1, pg. 5). Noticing the reverence with which Candide addresses Pangloss and the Baron's son, the Levantine captain inflates the price of their freedom to fifty thousand sequins. They soon reach Constantinople. Candide sells two of his diamonds, and the group of five set out to fetch Cunégonde. Topic Tracking: Flawed Logic 12 Candide apologizes to the Baron's son for stabbing him. The Baron's son admits he had been too hard on Candide. He explains that once he recovered from the injury, he was captured by Spaniards, thrown in jail and then sent to Constantinople to be the almoner to the French Ambassador. One day he bathed with a young boy, the page to a Sultan. The Baron's son was then beaten and forced to work as a galley slave for the crime. He innocently tells Candide he was ignorant of the rule barring Christians from bathing with young naked Muslims. The Baron quickly demands to know how it is possible that his sister has ended up as the dishwasher of an exiled sovereign. Pangloss explains that he wasn't burned as was customary at an auto-da-fé because of the rain. He was hung instead. A surgeon started to dissect his body. Though the executioner of the holy Inquisition was good at burning heretics, he was bad at hanging them. Pangloss screamed when the surgeon made a very long incision because he was still alive. After the surgeon--actually a Portuguese barber--got over his shock, he and his wife nursed Pangloss back to health. They sent Pangloss off to be a lackey for a Knight of Malta. Pangloss then became a servant to a Venetian merchant who took Pangloss to Constantinople. There, Pangloss was punished for fondling a devotee's naked breasts (he is able to name precisely the five species of flowers that hung between them). Like the Baron's son, Pangloss received one hundred strokes to the soles of his feet and was sent to be a galley slave. There he rows with the Baron's son, and they argue constantly. The Baron's son insisted he was the victim of a greater injustice. Pangloss disagreed. Candide asks Pangloss if he still believes in optimism: "'[W]hen you were hanged, dissected, stunned with blows and made to row in the galleys, did you always think that everything was for the best in this world?'" Chapter 28, pg. 140 Pangloss vainly refuses to recant, stating that optimism is too attractively neat to renounce. Topic Tracking: Flawed Logic 13 Candide, Pangloss, the Baron's son, Martin and Cacambo argue about philosophy and reach the shores of Propontis where Cunégonde and the old woman live. They see Cunégonde and the old woman washing laundry outside. "Candide, that tender lover, seeing his fair Cunégonde sunburned, blear-eyed, flat-breasted, with wrinkles around her eyes and red, chapped arms, recoiled three paces in horror, and then advanced from mere politeness." Chapter 29, pg. 141 The reunion is quick, understated, and oddly devoid of the emotional excesses of previous reunions. Candide buys the old woman and Cunégonde from their master. At the old woman's suggestion, Candide buys a nearby farm. Cunégonde is unaware she is ugly. She sharply tells him to fulfill his promise to marry her. When the Baron's son learns of the marriage plans he loses his temper and refuses to allow the marriage. In a surprisingly reasonable and articulate speech (for Candide, at least), Candide tells the ungrateful Baron's son that he is doing Cunégonde a favor by marrying her since she is so undesirable. The Baron's son is deaf to Candide's reason, and he prohibits the marriage. The Baron's son's opposition to the marriage, along with Cunégonde's coaxing, makes Candide determined to follow through with the marriage, but he does not really want to marry Cunégonde. Candide returns the Baron's son to the galley ship. It was an enjoyable task, considering the Baron's son was such a snob and a Jesuit. Life is not happy on Candide's small farm. Both Cunégonde and the old woman are ugly and unpleasant. Cacambo is unhappy and overworked, and Pangloss vainly pines for a professorship in a German university. Martin accepts his lot, observing that people are uncomfortable whatever their circumstances. Candide, Pangloss, and Martin argue about philosophy and morality while they watch streams of political and religious exiles being carted over the seas. Otherwise, Candide and his friends are bored. The old woman points out that boredom is just as bad as being unfortunate. "'I should like to know which is worse, to be raped a hundred times by Negro pirates, to have a buttock cut off, to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and flogged in an auto-da-fé, to be dissected, to row in a galley, in short, to endure all the miseries through which we have passed, or to remain here doing nothing?'" Chapter 30, pg. 145 Pangloss admits he was miserable all of his life and that he never believed in optimism. Paquette and Friar Giroflée arrive. Martin predicted correctly that they would be more miserable with Candide's money. This inspires more philosophizing. The group consults Turkey's best philosopher, a Dervish, about the problem of evil and the nature of life. The Dervish's answer implies that God does not concern himself with human affairs. The Dervish compares humans to rats on a ship, and he says that there is no reasonable explanation for existence of evil or the nature of life. "'What does it matter,' said the Dervish, 'whether there is evil or good? When his highness sends a ship to Egypt, does he worry about the comfort or discomfort of the rats in the ship?'" Chapter 30, pg. 146 The Dervish tells Pangloss he should conduct his life by holding his tongue. Pangloss is indignant. The Dervish rudely closes the door. Returning to the farm, Pangloss, Martin and Candide learn that several high-ranking religious officials were strangled and impaled. They ask a farmer if he heard the news. The farmer prides himself on his ignorance of public affairs, saying that he is best off working and selling what he cultivates in his garden. "'[W]ork keeps at bay three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.'" Chapter 30, pg. 147 Candide thinks about what the farmer says. After the farmer's children serve them wonderful refreshments, the group returns to the farm. Candide thinks the farmer is better off than the six dethroned kings he met in Venice. Pangloss responds to Candide's musings by expounding upon one of his theories, but Candide cuts him off. Candide announces that they should cultivate their gardens. Pangloss acquiesces and starts talking about the Garden of Eden. This time Martin interrupts him, saying that working was better than philosophical theorizing. "'Let us work without theorizing,' said Martin; ''tis the only way to make life endurable.'" Chapter 30, pg. 148 The group follows this sound advice. Cunégonde becomes a pastry-cook, Paquette embroiders, the old woman washes the linens, and Friar Giroflée learns carpentry. Pangloss gives optimism one last plug, telling Candide that, absent all the misfortunes he endured, Candide would not be enjoying his farm and eating nuts and candy. Candide agrees, but he tells Pangloss again that one must cultivate one's garden. Topic Tracking: Flawed Logic 14Plot Summary
Major Characters
Minor Characters
Objects/Places
Quotes
Topic Tracking: Flawed Logic
Topic Tracking: Hypocrisy
Topic Tracking: Optimism
Topic Tracking: Pride
Topic Tracking: War
Chapter 1
"How Candide Was Brought Up in a Noble Castle and How He Was Expelled from the Same"
Topic Tracking: Optimism 1Chapter 2
"What Happened to Candide Among the Bulgarians"
Topic Tracking: Flawed Logic 2Chapter 3
"How Candide Escaped from the Bulgarians and What Became of Him"
Topic Tracking: War 2
Topic Tracking: Optimism 2
Topic Tracking: Hypocrisy 1Chapter 4
"How Candide Met His Old Master in Philosophy, Doctor Pangloss, and What Happened"
Topic Tracking: Optimism 3Chapter 5
"Storm, Shipwreck, Earthquake, and What Happened to Dr. Pangloss, to Candide and the Anapbaptist Jacques"
Topic Tracking: Optimism 4 Chapter 6
"How a Splendid Auto-da-Fé Was Held to Prevent Earthquakes, and How Candide Was Flogged"
Topic Tracking: Optimism 5
Topic Tracking: Hypocrisy 3Chapter 7
"How an Old Woman Took Care of Candide and How He Regained That Which he Loved"
Chapter 8
"Cunégonde's Story"
Chapter 9
"What Happened to Cunégonde, to Candide, to the Grand Inquisitor, and to a Jew"
Chapter 10
"How Candide, Cunégonde, and the Old Woman Arrived at Cadiz in Great Distress, and How They Embarked"
Topic Tracking: Hypocrisy 5
Topic Tracking: Pride 3
Topic Tracking: War 5Chapter 11
"The Old Woman's Story"
Topic Tracking: War 6Chapter 12
"Continuation of the Old Woman's Misfortunes"
Topic Tracking: Optimism 6
Topic Tracking: War 7Chapter 13
"How Candide Was Obliged to Separate from the Fair Cunégonde and the Old Woman"
Topic Tracking: Pride 4Chapter 14
"How Candide and Cacambo Were Received by the Jesuits in Paraguay"
Topic Tracking: Pride 5Chapter 15
"How Candide Killed His Dear Cunégonde's Brother"
Topic Tracking: Pride 6Chapter 16
"What Happened to the Two Travelers with Two Girls, Two Monkeys, and the Savages Called Oreillons"
Topic Tracking: Optimism 8Chapter 17
"Arrival of Candide and his Valet in the Country of Eldorado and What They Saw There"
Chapter 18
"What They Saw in the Land of Eldorado"
Chapter 19
"What Happened to Them at Surinam and How Candide Made the Acquaintance of Martin"
Topic Tracking: Optimism 10Chapter 20
"What Happened to Candide and Martin at Sea"
Chapter 21
"Candide and Martin Approach the Coast of France and Argue"
Chapter 22
"What Happened to Candide and Martin in France"
Topic Tracking: Hypocrisy 12
Topic Tracking: Optimism 13Chapter 23
"Candide and Martin Reach the Coast of England; and What They Saw There"
Chapter 24
"Paquette and Friar Giroflée"
Topic Tracking: Hypocrisy 13
Topic Tracking: Optimism 14Chapter 25
"Visit to the Noble Venetian, Lord Pococurante"
Chapter 26
"How Candide and Martin Supped With Six Strangers and Who They Were"
Chapter 27
"Candide's Voyage to Constantinople"
Topic Tracking: Hypocrisy 14
Topic Tracking: Pride 7Chapter 28
"What Happened to Candide, to Cunégonde, to Pangloss, to Martin, Etc."
Topic Tracking: Optimism 17
Topic Tracking: Pride 8Chapter 29
"How Candide Found Cunégonde and the Old Woman Again"
Chapter 30
"Conclusion"
Topic Tracking: Hypocrisy 16
Topic Tracking: Optimism 18