SOURCE: Keener, Frederick M. “Candide: Structure and Motivation.” In The Chain of Becoming: The Philosophical Tale, the Novel, and a Neglected Realism of the Enlightenment: Swift, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Johnson, and Austen, pp. 194-216. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.

In this essay, originally published in 1979, Keener focuses on the characterization of Candide, contending that despite Voltaire's use of him as a marionette in the work, he deserves consideration as a character.

Enlightenment is man's leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another. … I do not have any need to think; if I can pay, others will take over the tedious job for me.

—Kant, “What is Enlightenment?”¹

That Candide the character is a marionette has become a commonplace in criticism of the tale, despite infrequent though recurrent statements to the contrary by some commentators.² Yet the primary meaning of the...