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Candide: Or Optimism

Voltaire

1759 · 18th Century · Satire · French

Public domainmedium medical relevanceRead full text Five-minute digest

Summary

Candide, ou l'Optimisme follows a guileless young man raised in the castle of the Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh in Westphalia, where the tutor Pangloss teaches that this is the best of all possible worlds and that everything is for the best. Candide is kicked out of the castle for kissing the Baron's daughter Cunégonde behind a screen, and the rest of the tale tests Pangloss's doctrine against an avalanche of catastrophe. Candide is press-ganged into the Bulgar army and flogged, witnesses the slaughter of a war, and escapes to Holland, where he is helped by the kindly Anabaptist Jacques and finds Pangloss reduced to a beggar ravaged by syphilis, which Pangloss cheerfully explains as a necessary consequence of Columbus bringing chocolate and cochineal from the New World. Pangloss reports that the castle has been destroyed and Cunégonde raped and killed. Sailing to Lisbon, Jacques drowns, and Candide and Pangloss arrive in time for the earthquake of 1755. The Inquisition holds an auto-da-fé to prevent further quakes: Pangloss is hanged and Candide flogged. Candide is then rescued by an old woman who leads him to Cunégonde, alive and shared as a mistress by a Jewish banker and the Grand Inquisitor; Candide kills both and flees with Cunégonde and the old woman, who tells her own appalling history, including the loss of half a buttock during a siege. In South America Candide is separated from Cunégonde, kills her brother (apparently), escapes cannibals with his resourceful valet Cacambo, and stumbles upon El Dorado, a rational, tolerant, wealthy utopia without priests or prisons, which he leaves out of love and a desire for riches. In Surinam he meets an enslaved man missing a hand and a leg and begins to doubt optimism. Swindled repeatedly, he travels with the pessimist scholar Martin through Paris, where he falls ill and is fleeced, England, where he watches an admiral shot to encourage the others, and Venice. Eventually he buys the freedom of the old Baron's son, Pangloss (who survived his hanging) and Cunégonde, now ugly and bad-tempered. He marries her anyway, and the group settles on a small farm near Constantinople. Bored and quarrelsome, they learn from a Turkish farmer that work keeps away boredom, vice and need. When Pangloss again recites the chain of causes that led them there, Candide replies that we must cultivate our garden.

Plot or Argument

Westphalia and the Bulgar army (Ch. 1–3)
Pangloss's optimistic philosophy, Candide's expulsion from the castle, his conscription and the horrors of war.
Holland and Lisbon (Ch. 4–6)
Pangloss's syphilis; the drowning of Jacques; the Lisbon earthquake and the auto-da-fé.
Cunégonde and the old woman (Ch. 7–12)
Reunion with Cunégonde, two killings, flight to Cádiz, and the old woman's tale of rape, slavery and siege.
South America and El Dorado (Ch. 13–19)
Paraguay and the Jesuits, the Oreillons, the utopia of El Dorado, and the enslaved man of Surinam.
Europe with Martin (Ch. 20–26)
The pessimist Martin's company through France, England and Venice; frauds, illness, the execution of an admiral, and the dinner of deposed kings.
The garden (Ch. 27–30)
Rescue of Pangloss and Cunégonde, the farm near Constantinople, the Turkish farmer's advice, and the conclusion that we must work our garden.

Characters

Candide, protagonist
Naive young man whose optimistic education is tested by the world's evils.
Pangloss, tutor
Philosopher of 'metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology' who maintains that all is for the best whatever happens.
Cunégonde, Candide's beloved
Baron's daughter whose sufferings parallel Candide's and who ends ugly and bitter.
The Old Woman, Cunégonde's servant
Daughter of a pope and a princess whose catalogue of misfortunes outdoes everyone's.
Cacambo, Candide's valet
Practical, loyal mestizo servant who guides Candide through South America.
Martin, scholar
Pessimistic Manichaean who counters Pangloss's optimism with gloom.
Jacques, Anabaptist
Good-hearted Dutchman who helps Candide and drowns off Lisbon.
Paquette, servant girl
The chambermaid from whom Pangloss caught syphilis, later a prostitute in Venice.

Lessons

Systems can blind us to suffering
Pangloss's philosophy explains every disaster as necessary, so it never helps anyone. Voltaire attacks thought that justifies the world instead of improving it.
- Is Voltaire fair to Leibniz's actual philosophy?
- What modern 'Panglossian' explanations do you hear?
- Is Martin's pessimism any better?
Related across the library
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- Treasure Island, Lesson: Stories leave afterimages
  Stories leave afterimages. Jim's adventure ends, but the island returns in dreams and sounds. Stevenson recognizes that thrilling experience can also become haunting memory.
- Lysistrata and Other Plays, Lesson: Suspicion of new learning
  Suspicion of new learning. The Clouds mocks intellectuals who can argue any side. It raises questions about education, rhetoric and moral relativism that still matter.
- 12 Years a Slave, The Trader--The Paddle And Cat-O'-Ninetails--The Whipping--New
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- Testament of Youth, Lesson: War from the home front and the hospital
  War from the home front and the hospital. Brittain shows a war experienced through letters, telegrams and hospital wards. Her memoir widened the canon of war writing beyond the soldier's trench narrative.
Work as an answer to despair
The ending offers no grand theory, only modest shared labour. 'Cultivating our garden' suggests attending to what is within reach.
- Is the ending hopeful, resigned or ironic?
- What does 'our garden' mean for you?
Related across the library
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- Billy Budd and Other Stories, Lesson: Perception is shaped by prejudice
  Perception is shaped by prejudice. Delano cannot imagine that enslaved Africans could plan and execute a revolt, so he misreads every clue. Benito Cereno shows how ideology blinds well-meaning observers.
- The Golden Ass, Lesson: Salvation may be sincere and comic
  Salvation may be sincere and comic. The Isiac ending offers real deliverance but keeps traces of satire and cost. Apuleius refuses a purely simple conversion story.
- The Underdogs, Lesson: Revolution needs more than grievance
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- Pensees, Introduction
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Satire as moral argument
Through exaggeration and speed, Candide exposes war, slavery, religious persecution and imperial greed. Comedy becomes a way of saying what direct protest could not.
- Why does the narrator report atrocities so cheerfully?
- Which target of the satire still seems relevant?
Related across the library
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- Testament of Youth, Lesson: War from the home front and the hospital
  War from the home front and the hospital. Brittain shows a war experienced through letters, telegrams and hospital wards. Her memoir widened the canon of war writing beyond the soldier's trench narrative.
- The Art of War, Lesson: Whoever lives by war needs war to continue
  Whoever lives by war needs war to continue. Fabrizio's first argument is that a professional soldier must either wish for perpetual war or plunder in peace, and that mercenary captains prolong wars to keep their pay. Military organisation is a question of incentives, and a state that hires violence buys a permanent interest in disorder.
- Macbeth, Summary
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- The Master and Margarita, Lesson: Cowardice is the worst vice
  Cowardice is the worst vice. Pilate's failure to save Yeshua, and the Master's flight from persecution, show how fear corrupts the conscience. The novel treats moral courage as the rarest and most necessary virtue.

Context

Candide responds to the Lisbon earthquake of 1 November 1755, which killed tens of thousands and shook Enlightenment confidence in a benevolent order, and to the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). Its target is the optimism associated with Leibniz and popularised by Alexander Pope's 'Whatever is, is right', as well as the Inquisition, the Jesuits, slavery and imperial exploitation. The execution of Admiral John Byng in 1757 is satirised directly.

Composition

Voltaire wrote the tale in 1758 at Les Délices near Geneva and published it anonymously in early 1759, simultaneously in several cities to evade censorship. It was presented as translated from the German of a 'Doctor Ralph'.

Reception

Candide was condemned by religious and civil authorities and widely banned, yet sold enormously. It became the most read of Voltaire's works, inspired Leonard Bernstein's operetta (1956), and turned 'Panglossian' into an English adjective.

Satire Folly Doubt Meaning Faith / Religion Travel Journey Utopia / Dystopia War Violence Race Slavery Education

Comparisons

gullivers-travels
Both are satirical voyages in which a credulous narrator encounters absurd societies and a utopia (El Dorado, the Houyhnhnms); Swift ends in misanthropy, Voltaire in the garden.
persian-letters
Montesquieu's earlier satire also uses outsiders' eyes to expose French customs and religion.
don-quixote
Both feature an idealistic hero whose book-learned view of the world is repeatedly battered by reality.
twelve-years-a-slave
The mutilated enslaved man of Surinam is one of the 18th century's most famous literary indictments of slavery; Northup provides the first-hand testimony.
meditations
Both ask how to live when the world's order is opaque; the Stoic acceptance of Marcus Aurelius can be compared with Pangloss's parody of acceptance.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

Every time Pangloss appeals to sufficient reason. Keep a list: Cunégonde as the sufficient reason for kisses in Chapter 1, the bayonet as the sufficient reason for soldiers' deaths in Chapter 3, Columbus and the New World as the reason for his own disease in Chapter 4. Notice that the explanation never changes anything.
The death of Jacques the Anabaptist in Chapter 5. He drowns after saving the sailor who then lets him die, and Pangloss stops Candide from jumping in by proving that the bay of Lisbon was formed for the Anabaptist to drown in.
The cheerful, rapid voice of the narrator reporting war, rape, and execution. The battle in Chapter 3 is told as if it were a parade, and the tone is part of the argument.
El Dorado in Chapters 17 and 18, a kingdom without courts, prisons, or quarrelling clergy, and the reasons Candide gives for leaving it.
The three answers at the end: Lord Pococurante in Chapter 25, who owns magnificent gardens and books and enjoys none of them; the dervish in Chapter 30, who shuts the door on Pangloss's questions; and the old Turk, who lives contentedly on the produce of a small farm.

Key terms and names

Optimism: The subtitle of the book and Pangloss's doctrine that this is the best of all possible worlds and all is for the best. Voltaire's target is the popular version of a philosophy associated with Leibniz and Pope, which he presents as a reason never to act.
Sufficient reason: Leibniz's principle that nothing happens without a reason why it is so and not otherwise. In Pangloss's mouth it becomes a formula for explaining every disaster after the fact.
Thunder-ten-tronckh: The Westphalian barony where the story begins, whose Baron counts as one of the mightiest lords in Westphalia because his castle has a gate and windows, and which Pangloss calls the most beautiful of castles. Its destruction by the Bulgars in Chapter 4 is the first of many lost paradises.
Auto-da-fé: A public ceremony of the Inquisition at which sentences were carried out. In Chapter 6 the University of Coimbra recommends one to prevent further earthquakes after Lisbon, and Pangloss is hanged while Candide is flogged.
El Dorado: The hidden South American kingdom of Chapters 17 and 18 where gold is pebbles and everyone worships God in thanksgiving without asking for anything. It is the one place in the book where Pangloss would be right, and Candide leaves it.
Martin: The poor scholar Candide chooses as his companion in Surinam after advertising for the most dissatisfied and most unfortunate man in the province. Martin calls himself a Manichaean and counters Pangloss by finding the worst in everything.
Pococurante: The Venetian senator of Chapter 25, whose name means caring little. He has every pleasure of art and learning and is bored by all of them.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension Why is Candide expelled from the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh in Chapter 1, and what does Pangloss teach him before he goes?
Comprehension What happens to Candide and Pangloss in Lisbon in Chapters 5 and 6, and what reason do the authorities give for the auto-da-fé?
Comprehension Whom does Candide meet on the road outside Surinam in Chapter 19, and what does this encounter make him say about optimism for the first time?
Interpretation Pangloss holds Candide back from saving Jacques by proving the bay was made for Jacques to drown in. What is Voltaire suggesting about the relation between a philosophy of necessity and the duty to help a neighbor?
Interpretation El Dorado has everything the outside world lacks, yet Candide and Cacambo leave it to show off their wealth and find Cunégonde. What does their departure reveal about human nature, and does it weaken Voltaire's case for a rational society?
Interpretation Martin's pessimism is right far more often than Pangloss's optimism. Why does Voltaire still refuse to let Martin have the last word?
Interpretation Compare Pococurante's grand gardens in Chapter 25 with the old Turk's small farm in Chapter 30. Why is one man miserable amid every good thing and the other content with little?
Big Question Candide's last words reply to Pangloss by turning from explanation to work. Is the question of why evil exists one that human beings should keep asking, or should they, like the dervish, leave it alone and tend to what lies within reach?

Faith Connections

Luke 13:1-5 (Scripture)
Jesus denies that the eighteen killed when the tower in Siloam fell were worse sinners than others in Jerusalem. The Inquisitors in Chapter 6 make exactly the reasoning Jesus refuses, treating the Lisbon earthquake as a judgment to be appeased by burning the guilty.
Job 38-42 (Scripture)
Job's friends, like Pangloss, explain his suffering with a tidy system, and God rebukes them. God answers Job from the whirlwind with questions rather than reasons, which can be set beside the dervish who shuts the door in Chapter 30, though Job ends in worship and not in silence.
Genesis 2:15 (Scripture)
God places Adam in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Voltaire's closing garden echoes the first one: the book begins with an expulsion from a supposed earthly paradise in Westphalia and ends with honest labor in a small plot.
Leibniz, Theodicy (1710) (Great Conversation)
Leibniz argued that God, being wise and good, chose the best of all possible worlds, and that evils belong to a whole whose goodness we cannot fully see. Reading a few sections lets students judge whether Pangloss is a fair portrait of Leibniz or a caricature of the way his ideas were repeated.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: If this were the best of all possible worlds, its evils would be necessary parts of a good whole; but the earthquake, the war, the Inquisition, slavery, and disease that Candide meets serve no good anyone can see, and the claim that they do excuses inaction; therefore philosophical optimism is false or useless, and the sensible response to evil is neither theory nor despair but modest, shared work, the cultivation of one's own garden.

Rhetorical device: deadpan irony. In Chapter 3 the narrator describes the battle between the Bulgars and the Abares in the language of a splendid spectacle, with trumpets and cannon in harmony, before listing the dead and the burning villages in the same calm tone. The gap between the polished style and the slaughter makes the reader supply the horror the narrator withholds.

Debate: Resolved: The final advice to cultivate our garden is a wise answer to the problem of evil, not an evasion of it.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Candide meets three possible guides to life: Pangloss, who explains everything; Martin, who expects the worst of everything; and the old Turk, who explains nothing and works. Argue what Voltaire teaches by placing the Turk last, and whether the farm near Constantinople is a happy ending, a resigned one, or something else.

Comparison with The Consolation of Philosophy: Boethius, imprisoned and awaiting execution, is taught by Lady Philosophy that providence orders all things for good, while Voltaire mocks Pangloss for teaching something that sounds similar. Compare the two teachers and argue whether Voltaire's satire touches Boethius's account of providence or only Pangloss's version of it.

Medical Lens

Pangloss's syphilis, contracted from the servant Paquette and traced through a comic genealogy back to a companion of Columbus, reflects the then-common 'Columbian' theory that syphilis was brought to Europe from the Americas; Pangloss loses an eye and an ear to the disease and its treatment. Voltaire satirises doctors in Paris, where Candide's illness is made worse by physicians who flock to a rich patient. The book catalogues bodily suffering in war, mutilation and torture, and the Lisbon earthquake chapters touch on disaster medicine and providential explanations of catastrophe. For a medical reader, the tale is a lively source on 18th-century views of venereal disease and medical fraud.

Syphilis Venereal Quackery Charlatans Physicians Doctors Disability Deformity WAR Wounds Pain Death Dying

Ch. 4
Candide finds Pangloss disfigured by syphilis; Pangloss explains the genealogy of the disease and its 'necessity'.
Syphilis Venereal Disability Deformity
Ch. 5–6
The Lisbon earthquake, the injured Candide, and the auto-da-fé held to prevent further quakes.
Pain Death Dying
Ch. 3
Battle between Bulgars and Abares; heaps of dead and dying, mutilated villagers.
WAR Wounds Pain
Ch. 22
In Paris Candide falls ill; doctors and others descend on him and his health worsens under their care.
Quackery Charlatans Physicians Doctors
Ch. 19
The enslaved man in Surinam missing a hand and a leg as punishment.
Disability Deformity Pain

Creative Prompts

Fiction
Send Candide and Pangloss through a modern disaster and write the chapter in Voltaire's breakneck style.
Essay
Compare Pangloss's optimism with Martin's pessimism and the Turkish farmer's practical wisdom. Which does Voltaire endorse?
Classroom
Read Chapter 18 on El Dorado as a utopia. What does it lack, and why do Candide and Cacambo leave?