Summary:

Endowed with an "honest mind" and "great simplicity of heart," Candide lives in the castle of the Baron of Westphalia. He is rumored to be the illegitimate son of the Baroness, an imposing three hundred and fifty-pound woman. His tutor Pangloss, who inspires from an early age the greatest reverence, instills in him a doctrine of optimism whereby "everything is for the best." One day, Candide and Miss Cunégonde, the attractive daughter of the Baron, kiss behind a screen. The Baron discovers them and banishes Candide from the castle.

In despair over his newfound state of exile and separation from Miss Cunégonde, Candide finds consolation in a tavern with two men, who invite him to dinner. But they soon put him in shackles and consign him to the army of the King of the Bulgars. Candide is whipped into discipline and emerges a military prodigy, much to his own astonishment. When he innocently wanders outside the camp to take a morning walk, he is accused of defection. The King pardons him of the crime, saving Candide from further flogging and punishment by the army.

Candide escapes from the Bulgar army during a gruesome battle with the neighboring Abares and travels to Holland, where Jacques the Anabaptist charitably takes Candide under his care. Walking in the street, Candide comes upon a beggar in wretched condition and tosses him a few coins. The man reveals himself to be Pangloss, who narrowly escaped a vicious and bloody attack at the Castle of Westphalia. He informs Candide that Miss Cunégonde was raped and killed, and the Baron's skull bashed in. Pangloss also explains that his physical deterioration is due to a bout of syphilis, transmitted by Miss Cunégonde's maidservant Paquette. When Candide challenges Pangloss to reconcile his personal misfortune with his doctrine of optimism, Pangloss stubbornly rationalizes his own illness as a "necessary ingredient." "Private misfortunes make for public welfare," he concludes. Dispensing with further philosophical debate, Candide pragmatically pays a doctor to heal Pangloss.

Analysis

With Candide's expulsion from the idyllic castle of Westphalia, the opening chapter is a thinly veiled re-enactment of Adam and Eve's exile from the Garden of Eden and the scene of original sin. Candide is very much in dialogue with eighteenth-century debates over Christianity, which was evolving in a paradoxically more secular direction away from strict adherence to religious duties and commandments toward a more reason-based approach to ethical behavior.

The concept of genealogical relations and the social legitimacy they confer is thoroughly satirized, first in the description of Miss Cunégonde's flawless nobility, then in Pangloss's explanation of his syphilis contamination, which he traces all the way back to Christopher Columbus's voyage to the Americas. Voltaire succeeds in making a pointed commentary about the arbitrariness of privilege and wealth, but also misfortune and poverty. In his view, there is about as much nobility in having descended from several thousands years of uninterrupted aristocracy as there is in having caught a venereal disease originally transmitted by the famous explorer of New World.

Voltaire weaves together an extraordinary set of plot coincidences in which characters' fates will intersect with one another, in a totally unexpected but always fortuitous way. Those long presumed dead, such as Miss Cunégonde, Pangloss, and the Baron, will suddenly reappear after a prolonged absence from the storyline. Candide's encounter with Pangloss represents the first such example of this plot maneuver, which is intended to highlight the doctrine of optimism that this character promotes, namely, that everything happens for a reason. The improbability of such spontaneous reunions makes their frequency in Candide attributable to more than mere chance; there must be some larger and intentional design behind the unbroken concatenation of character relations. From the perspective of the reader, these coincidences quickly stretch the bounds of realism and become almost comical and over-the-top narrative twists by virtue of their improbability.

Jacques is thrown overboard while trying to help a sailor tossed by the tempest. In the ensuing shipwreck, Candide is injured by falling stonework. Pangloss invokes universal reason: "Things could not possibly be otherwise."

At an Auto-da-fé, a public ceremony of repentance and humiliation, Candide is flogged and Pangloss hanged by authorities who round up several townspeople for communal rites intended as "an infallible specific against earthquakes." Candide plunges into despair, wondering what the cause of all this hardship is.

An Old Woman takes Candide in and nurses his wounds. She later escorts him to the countryside and presents him to Miss Cunégonde, who has survived the rape and pillaging of the castle, contrary to what Pangloss claimed. They tell each other of their trials and tribulations.

Miss Cunégonde tells her story: after a brutal rape at the Castle of Westphalia, a Bulgar captain sells her to Jewish merchant Don Issachar. The Grand Inquisitor takes notice of Miss Cunégonde at mass and insists on a shared living arrangement with Don Issachar. He invites her to an Auto-da-fé where, in horror, she witnesses the torture of Candide and apparent execution of Pangloss.

Don Issachar discovers Candide and Miss Cunégonde lying together on the sofa and draws a dagger. Candide drives a long sword into the Israelite, killing him instantly. Miss Cunégonde panics, and at that instant, the Grand Inquisitor walks in. Without hesitation, Candide drives the sword through his other rival. The Old Woman suggests that they escape by horseback to Cadiz, thirty miles away. Candide, Miss Cunégonde and the Old Woman stop at a tavern in Aracena along the route to Cadiz.

Miss Cunégonde's jewels and diamonds are stolen at the tavern. The Old Woman suspects the Franciscan priest. Once again penniless, they sell one of their horses to a Benedictine friar and continue on their journey to Cadiz. Candide impresses the general of an army with his military skills and procures two additional horses. They ruminate on Pangloss's philosophy. Miss Cunégonde and the Old Woman compete with each other for the title of most aggrieved and unfortunate. The Old Woman reveals the extent of her own hardships.

Daughter of a pope and a princess, the Old Woman grew up in a luxurious castle contracted in marriage to the Prince of Massa Carrara. Before the marriage, he dies from liquid chocolate served by a former mistress. She and her mother end up as slaves in Morocco, where a Moorish captain takes her virginity. In a gory battle between competing native tribes, everyone is slain except her, left standing in a heap of corpses. The young princess falls unconscious, only to be awoken by an Italian man, who offers to transport her to Italy. Instead, he sells her to the Dey of an Algerian province. The plague sweeps the African nation, killing everyone except her. After the first wave of pestilence dies down, she is sold to a string of other merchants from Tripoli to Constantinople. She finally lands in the custody of a janissary, who is attacked by the Russians and whose fort is blockaded and starved to the point of famine. A man proposes to cut one buttock off each woman to feed the rest. They all undergo this painful procedure. Later liberated, she is healed by a French surgeon. She ends by disavowing any self-pitying stance, and challenges Miss Cunégonde and Candide to find someone who does not consider himself "the most wretched of mortals."

Analysis

Throughout the story, Voltaire balances his role as omniscient storyteller with the testimonies of individual characters. Entire chapters are regularly devoted to "Cunégonde's story" or "Old Woman's Story." This narrative technique is an extension of the theme of candor because the first-person voice appears to lend sincerity and authenticity to the experiences that the characters recount. Voltaire creates a tension between the form and content of the story‹in other words, between the way in which it is told and what is actually being told. The earnest, serious tone of these testimonies is very much at odds with the clearly embellished and exaggerated details of the tale. The reader is made to feel sympathy and incredulity at the same time, without either reaction canceling the other out.

Already Pangloss's doctrine of optimism is showing signs of wearing thin. How Candide can account for Jacques the Anabaptist's death when he was acting in the role of good samaritan? Why is he being flogged and Pangloss himself hanged? Often Candide's unwavering faith in Pangloss's wisdom will force him into contortions of logic that defy standards of ethical behavior. In the next section, Candide will justify his killing of Miss Cunégonde's brother since this act later spares his own life by proving that he is not a Jesuit. Similarly, challenged to defend his murder of the Inquisitor, Candide responds: "When a man is in love, jealous Š he is no longer himself." The flimsiness of his justification points up the moral inconsistency of optimistic determinism.

A short summary prefaces the start of each chapter, often proclaiming "What happened to Š" The question of fate and destiny figures prominently into the Panglossian doctrine of optimism. Despite the third-person omniscient narration, Voltaire gives voice to the two central female characters, allowing them to shape the account of their own destinies. Contrast the woe-is-me attitude of Miss Cunégonde with the more self-empowering stance of the Old Woman, who refuses to buy into the solipsism of victimhood, instead showing compassion toward her travelling companions: "I have become more concerned with your fate than with my own." Undoubtedly, the ethics of care articulated by the Old Woman is the closest thing to a philosophical alternative that Voltaire offers up in response to the doctrine of "optimism," which is inherently egoistic and engenders a form of paralyzing self-pity.

Miss Cunégonde and Candide concede that the Old Woman's tales trump their own in terms of the cruelty and hardship endured. They lament the absence of Pangloss and the philosopher's wisdom. Upon arriving by ship to Buenos Ayres, the Governor Don Fernando becomes instantly smitten with Miss Cunégonde and inquires into the nature of her relationship with Candide. The latter is too scrupulously honest to lie and shield her from the Governor's advances. Candide instead says that Miss Cunégonde is going to do him the honor of marriage. In private, Fernando makes a competing declaration of love. Miss Cunégonde consults with the Old Woman about how to proceed. She advises the young woman to take the hand of the wealthy governor. The Franciscan whom the Old Woman had suspecting of stealing Miss Cunégonde's diamonds at the tavern en route to Cadiz comes back to haunt them at this point in the story: a ship arrives in Buenos Ayres carrying agents of the Inquisitor, from whom the jewels were originally stolen. Caught with the gems, the Franciscan has already been hanged, but confessed before his execution who the previous owner was, and the agents have come in search of Miss Cunégonde and Candide for further retribution. The Old Woman urges Miss Cunégonde even more strongly to marry the Governor and seek his protection, since she is innocent of any wrongdoing against the Inquisitor.

Candide makes a swift escape with his footman Cacambo, who leads him to Paraguay, where he knows that Candide's military skills will be prized. After having their arms and two horses confiscated by the Paraguayan army, Candide and Cacambo land themselves in the company of the Reverend Father Commandant, who turns out to be Miss Cunégonde's brother, the Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh. Candide and the Baron rejoice in the unexpected reunion.

The Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh / Reverend recounts his ascendancy within the Jesuit priesthood and his enrollment in the military. Candide informs him that his sister, contrary to his understanding, survived the massacre of Westphalia and resides in Buenos Ayres. Overjoyed by the prospect of seeing Miss Cunégonde again, the Baron turns sour, however, when Candide reveals his intention to marry her. In an access of rage, Candide draws a sword and plunges it into the Baron. He collapses in grief at his unwarranted action, only to be rescued by Cacambo, who disrobes the Reverend and dresses Candide up in Jesuit garb in order to escort him from the military fortress unrecognized.

Candide and Cacambo wander into the strange country of the Oreillons, where Candide rescues two distressed damsels from what appear to be attacking monkeys. With his keen sense of aim, he kills the beasts instantly, only to learn that he has inadvertently created another mishap: the monkeys are the legitimate lovers of the women. The Oreillons descend on the two men the following day, armed with arrows and hatchets, ready to slaughter them in thinking that Candide is a Jesuit. Cacambo intervenes and challenges the Oreillons to inquire into the matter, whereupon they discover that Candide is in fact not a Jesuit. He and Cacambo are released unharmed. Candide quips that, had he not slaughtered Miss Cunégonde's brother, his life would not have been spared by the Oreillons.

Transported to the frontier of the Oreillons, Cacambo and Candide head toward Cayenne along a river route through "a chain of inaccessible mountains." They arrive in a magical land where the carriages are made of magical "glittering materials" and the streets paved with precious jewels. At an eating house, they are treated to a lavish dinner and entertainment. Candide tries to repay them with the jewels they have found on the road, and is met with laughter, since they are simple pebbles in the eyes of these remote Peruvian villagers.

Cacambo asks a 172 year-old man about the religion of the kingdom. Theirs "is the religion of the whole world" and "we are all of us priests," he responds. Enraptured by the man's discourse, Candide declares El Dorado a more ideal place than Westphalia according to Pangloss's standards. At the King's palace, Candide and Cacambo are greeted by twenty-one virgins. During a tour of the city, they learn that the country has neither judges nor legislators. They spend a month in the country of El Dorado as the guests of the King, but Candide decides to leave the land of luxury and leisure. The King grants them permission to leave, recognizing the inherent liberty of all men, and orders his engineers to construct a machine that will hoist them over the steep surrounding mountains. Candide and Cacambo take sheep and "pebbles" (i.e. jewels) with them as bargaining chips to get Miss Cunégonde back from Governor Don Fernando. Considered worthless in El Dorado, the jewels make them ten times richer than any monarch in Europe.

Candide and Cacambo head toward Surinam. Along the way they meet a Negro slave who has suffered unspeakable abuse at the hands of his master Mynheer Vanderdendur, a trader. Hearing the Negro's tale, Candide loses faith in the doctrine of optimism heralded by Pangloss, which is disparaged as nothing other than "the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst." Candide and Cacambo devise a plan to retrieve Miss Cunégonde: Cacambo will go back and bargain with the Inquisitor for the custody of Miss Cunégonde, and the two of them will reunite in Venice. Candide contracts with Mynheer Vanderdendur to take him to Italy. The trader, sensing the passenger's wealth, triples the amount for the voyage, then sails away with the diamond-loaded sheep, leaving Candide penniless in Surinam. Candide lodges a complaint with the Dutch magistrate, who fines him for his insolence and wasting the Court's time.

Candide makes arrangements to sail with a French captain and announces that he will pay the passage of any honest man to keep him company. The qualified candidate has to be "the most dissatisfied with his condition, and the most unfortunate in the whole province." Candide settles on Martin, a poor scholar who argues with him about the nature of moral and natural evil in the world. Martin confesses to being a Manichaean, much to the disbelief of Candide, as a result of past suffering. They spot two ships on the horizon engaged in battle. One belongs to the Dutch pirate who stole Candide's sheep and diamonds, some of which he reclaims after Mynheer's ship meets defeat and sinks to the bottom of the sea. Candide seizes upon the incident to reinforce his optimistic view of the world. But Martin points out that several innocent passengers also sank with the Dutch pirate. "God has punished the knave, and the Devil has drowned the rest," he concludes. Candide rekindles his hope to find Miss Cunégonde.

Analysis

The geographic dimensions of Candide are among its most remarkable features: the spatial mobility mirrors the social mobility--both upwards and downwards--of the characters. Though money is traditionally conceived as the determining force behind a character's fate, desirability or social status, the varying material fortunes of Miss Cunégonde, Candide and the Old Woman are shown to be more or less irrelevant to the storyline, in no way impeding the momentum of their travels. It is when the Old Woman is at her most destitute, for instance, that she acquires the most experience as "a chambermaid in Riga, then in Rostock, Wismar, Leipzig, Cassel, Utrecht, Leyden, The Hague, Rotterdam." Voltaire's description of the topographical features of the land metaphorically reflects the vicissitudes of the characters' providentially inspired fortunes: the river they travel "widened steadily; finally it disappeared into a chasm of frightful rocks that rose high into the heavens." The themes of space and movement take on a new level of importance in this section with the narrative detours to the mythical lands of the Oreillons and the country of El Dorado.

El Dorado might best be described as a proto-Marxist utopia, in the sense that the social "superstructure" (laws, politics, the State) has been eliminated because the material needs of everyday life have been satisfied. Marx believed that the economic base of society was the driving force behind History, causing social change through conflicts between competing classes or groups. The country of El Dorado is hence a place where the forces of History, and by extension, those of individual fate, have come to a halt. If it represents the organization of society at its most advanced, then the Oreillons are lower down on the evolutionary ladder, evocative of ancient mythological times when commixtures between man and beast produced "centaurs, fauns, and satyrs." Like the static society of El Dorado, the Oreillons are stuck in a primitive state where, absent any civilizing institutions, violence is tantamount to political power.

As they draw closer to the shore of France on their voyage, Martin pans France as a country where the "ruling passion is love, the next is slander, and the last is to talk nonsense." He describes Paris as "confused multitude, where everyone seeks for pleasure without being able to find it." Their discourse takes a philosophical turn. Candide asks the philosopher for what reason the world was formed. "To make us mad" is the response. Was mankind always so brutal to one another, guilty of "lies, fraud, treachery, ingratitude, inconstancy, envy, ambition, and cruelty"? If animals have not evolved in their nature, why should humans be expected to do so? The difference between animals and men is free will.

Candide stops in Bordeaux to replenish his supply of cash by selling off a few of the recovered jewels. He heads toward Paris where he falls ill and meets the Abbé of Périgord, who brings Candide and Martin to a playhouse. The performance moves Candide to tears, but draws the acerbic ire of a critic, who excoriates Candide for falling prey to such false sentimentality. The Abbé of Périgord offers to introduce Candide to the lead actress, Miss Clairon, who reminds him of Miss Cunégonde. Candide, Martin and the Abbé of Périgord head to her house in Saint-Honoré, a suburb of Paris, where they come upon a table of guests busy at a game of cards. Candide joins them and loves several thousand pieces without the slightest blink of an eye. Among the guests is the Marchioness of Parolignac, who trashes the latest romance written by Gauchat, Doctor of Divinity. A man of letters outlines what he considers to be the inviolable rules of good literature: "to dazzle the spectator the thoughts should be new, without being farfetched; frequently sublime, but always natural; the author should have a thorough knowledge of the human heart and make it speak properly; he should be a complete poet, without showing an affectation of it in any of the characters of his piece; he should be a perfect master of his language, speak it with all its purity, and with the utmost harmony, and yet so as not to make the sense a slave to the rhyme." Dazzled by his brilliance, Candide declares him the "second Pangloss."

After dinner, Marchioness of Parolignac shows Candide into her dressing room, and attempts to seduce him. Candide obliges her by tying her garter and transferring the two diamond rings from his finger to hers, then leaves. He confesses his infidelity to Miss Cunégonde to the Abbé of Périgord, who assuages his sense of guilt. The next morning, he receives a missive from Miss Cunégonde, who has arrived at Bordeaux with Cacambo and the Old Woman. She has been released from the custody of the Governor and accordingly dispossessed of everything. Candide rushes to see her, but is told that she cannot bear light or speak. A maid uncovers Miss Cunégonde's hand from beneath a bedsheet. Candide bathes it in tears and diamonds. At that moment, an officer enters the room and drags Candide and Martin to a local prison. Martin realizes that they have been swindled. Candide, wishing to avoid legal entanglements, bribes an officer to escort him out of prison and to Dieppe, where he catches a ferryboat to Portsmouth.

On the boat ride over, Candide and Martin in turn ridicule the English. As they near the shoreline, Candide is horrified to witness an English admiral being put to death on the deck of a ship, even more so when he learns that there is no legitimate reason for the execution. Horrified, he asks the captain of the ship to carry him directly to Venice.

Upon his arrival in Venice, Candide looks in vain for Cacambo. Martin chastises Candide for his naïveté, postulating that Cacambo probably made off with the jewels himself or, if he succeeded in getting Miss Cunégonde back, kept her for himself. He claims that "there is very little virtue or happiness in this world." Candide disputes Martin's claim by pointing out a seemingly happy couple passing in the street. They invite the couple to dinner and make a bet between themselves about the couple's happiness. The woman turns out to be Paquette, who recounts her own tale of mistreatment at the hands of a Franciscan priest, a doctor, and later a judge. Candide then turns to the man, Friar Giroflee, who lives a profoundly miserable existence in a monastery. Martin appears to have won the wager, but Candide clings to his faith that he will once again see Miss Cunégonde.

They next visit Senator Pococurante, a wealthy man who dislikes everything he possesses. Candide immediately flatters the Raphael canvas hanging on the walls of his lavish villa, only to be met with the Senator's crude indifference. When they sit down to dinner, Pococurante dismisses opera as a mediocre art form. Candide takes great offense at his systematic trashing of such literary geniuses as Homer, whose work is little but the "continual repetition of battles"; Virgil, whose characters are "flat and disagreeable"; and finally Milton, "who writes a tedious commentary in ten books of rambling verse." Candide, despairing over the continued absence of Cacambo and Miss Cunégonde, keep hoping that he will be reunited with his beloved.

Analysis

Martin quotes Plato as saying that "those are not the best stomachs that reject, without distinction, all sorts of aliments." Voltaire's metaphorical use of the stomach as an organ of taste points to the importance of aesthetic theory in his understanding of the human condition. If one of the key differences between men and animals is free will, then another criterion of distinction might be the appreciation of beauty. Freud believed that the one of the main functions of art was to provide temporary relief from the suffering and displeasure of the world. In the universe Voltaire describes, art seems only to engender more discontent; it has lost its ability to provoke an uplifting emotional response from its viewers. Instead, we witness a theater critic attacking Candide's reaction to Miss Clairon's performance as overly sincere and sentimental. These critical tendencies are carried to an extreme in Senator Pococurante, who paradoxically takes "pleasure in having no pleasure."

Critics have long considered Candide to be primarily a philosophical attack, but it is clear from this section that one of Voltaire's central aims is nothing less than the restoration of our capacity to appreciate good art and literature. Hence the guest at Miss Clairon's dinner party outlines a veritable treatise on character and plot development reminiscent of the rules in Aristotle's Poetics. Candide's indignation at Senator Pococurante's criticism of the great literary geniuses serves to defend and solidify the reputation of these authors (though Voltaire's own sensibilities did not necessarily coincide with his examples of literary greatness in this passage). Far from using the book as a platform for his own polemic, however, Voltaire prefers the more self-effacing technique of expressing himself via anonymous characters, such as the "Old Woman" (the only main character to lack a proper name) and the generic "man of letters."

Candide turns around one evening while dining in a tavern to lay his eyes upon Cacambo. Initially ecstatic at the thought that Miss Cunégonde accompanies him, he is once again disappointed to learn that Miss Cunégonde is in Constantinople, and worse, Cacambo has fallen back into the servitude of Sultan Achmet. Six strangers‹all of them former kings each dethroned in the most turbulent and miserable circumstances‹recount the stories of their respective political fall from power. They have all come to divert themselves at the Carnival at Venice.

Cacambo makes arrangements for Candide to sail to Constantinople aboard the Turkish ship of his master. He informs Candide that Miss Cunégonde has become the slave of Ragotsky, a Transylvanian prince, and has turned horribly ugly. Candide is undeterred in his love, though he regrets the deterioration of her beauty. Once they reach Bosphorus, Candide pays to liberate Cacambo, then searches for Miss Cunégonde in Propontis. They examine a row of slaves, two of whom closely resemble Pangloss and the Baron. At the mention of their names, the two men rise up in exclamatory shouts. After introductions to Martin and Cacambo, they set out to find Miss Cunégonde at the home of Ragotsky.

First, the Baron forgives Candide for the near-mortal injury inflicted upon him and describes how he was imprisoned in Buenos Ayres and again in Rome for bathing with young Turk. Pangloss recounts how the hanging was botched due to the incompetence of the executioner. Later he is imprisoned and tortured for entering a mosque and replacing a fallen bouquet of flowers in the bosom of a young woman‹a chivalrous act that draws the ire of the presiding imam. Despite his experience, Pangloss sticks to his belief in optimistic determinism.

Candide, Martin, Cacambo, Pangloss and the Baron find Miss Cunégonde and the Old Woman in Propontis. Candide gasps at her ugliness, but keeps his promise to marry her. When he informs the Baron of his intention, the Baron again refuses to allow the union, despite Miss Cunégonde's entreaties.

Incensed by the refusal, Candide decides with Martin and the Old Woman to send the Baron back into slavery and legally consummate the marriage without his consent. After so many misfortunes, they finally expect an era of happiness, but instead quickly lapse into idleness. Martin concludes that "man was bound either to live in convulsions of misery or in the lethargy of boredom." Paquette and Friar Giroflée arrive at the farm one day, having spent the fortune given to them by Candide, in a state of extreme misery. This new adventure makes them reflect on the nature of evil in the world. After receiving news of the assassination of two vizirs at Constantinople, Candide concludes that hard work is the "only way of rendering life bearable." "We must cultivate our garden," he says. And so all members of the household put their talents to use and finally enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Analysis

The round-robin testimonial of the six kings is a strange interlude in Candide. On the one hand, it points to the democratizing effects of misery and adversity, as former kings and heads of state now find themselves destitute and penniless; on the other, it is unclear whether we are to take seriously the sympathetic response shown to their respective tales of hardship. Clearly, Voltaire does not believe in the social entitlement and privilege that nobility automatically confers on certain individuals. The political power of the six kings is hence, in a certain sense, illegitimate in the first place, and their "downfall" not really a downfall at all.

Despite the enormity of evidence to the contrary, Pangloss insists on the ultimately redemptive value of suffering and an optimistic analysis of the causes and effects to which each of the characters has been subject. It is easy to forget that the force behind the skillful coordination of fates and intersection of destinies has been none other than the author himself. The extraordinary narrative craft displayed by Voltaire raises the question of whether authorial control has in essence substituted for providential design in Candide. Voltaire scholars frequently debate the relative importance of Candide's literary and philosophical qualities. In reality, the two work in perfect conjunction with one another, since the narrative organization of Candide turns out to be integral to the work's rumination on cause and effect, divine intervention and the consequences of human behavior.

The harmony found in communal life would seem to confirm the very philosophy that Voltaire has been mocking throughout, since it counterbalances and implicitly justifies all of the trials and tribulations experienced by Miss Cunégonde and the others. Candide, on the other hand, refuses to see the fortuitous conclusion as a sign of optimism. The philosophical emphasis shifts decisively away from providential design toward a more pragmatic understanding of human behavior as a determinant of fate. In doing so, Voltaire goes to the other extreme by detaching the individual from any consideration of larger historical forces that necessarily influence and circumscribe his/her destiny.

• Biography of Voltaire
• About Candide
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• Summary and Analysis of Chapters I-IV
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• Summary and Analysis of Chapters XIII-XX
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters XXI-XXV
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters XXVI-XXX
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