Candide 1105geographical displacement from Europe to South
America and back, Voltaire establishes that misery,
injustice, and unhappiness are universal human
experiences. At every juncture, Candide is faced with
events that force him to reevaluate Pangloss’s teach-
ings. Everywhere he travels, he sees that all is most
certainly not “for the best.” Evil is just as present in
the New World as it is in the old: It affects the “sav-
ages” of Paraguay just as much as it does the miser-
able kings of chapter 26. The only place that is free
from evil is Eldorado, but Eldorado is essentially a
prison, given that its citizens are unable to leave.
For much of his journey, Candide is accom-
panied by a series of guides. Unlike Pangloss,
these new guides tend toward pragmatism rather
than philosophy. Thanks to Cacambo and the Old
Woman’s practical nature and quick thinking, they
are able to extricate Candide from the difficult situ-
ations in which he finds himself. The Old Woman
offers advice with all the “prudence that age and
experience give,” for, as she says, “I have experience,
I know the world.” By chapter 30, Candide has
gained his own practical knowledge and no longer
relies so heavily on the advice of his guides; in fact,
his experience allows him to take charge, and it is
thanks to him that the community is finally able to
establish itself.
Candide is naive, but he is also curious. Because
he questions what he witnesses and undergoes,
he suspects that Pangloss’s optimistic theories are
flawed and do not stand up to scrutiny in the real
world. Faced with the reality of slavery, for example,
he explains to Cacambo that optimism is the “mania
of maintaining that all is well when we are miser-
able!” Thus, Candide progressively sheds some of his
innocence and begins to qualify Pangloss’s mantra.
In chapter 23, for example, he informs Martin that
“all goes as well as it possibly could.”
In this philosophical tale, Voltaire contrasts
innocence and experience, inaction and action, and
theory and practice. By its close, Candide is no lon-
ger an innocent who accepts theories when his own
experiences point to different conclusions. Experi-
ence, therefore, enables him to mature intellectu-
ally, but he also learns that philosophical musings
sometimes serve little purpose. Accordingly, in the
final sentence of the book, Candide finally dismisses
Pangloss’s philosophizing in order to get on with the
business of living.
Katherine AshleySuFFerInG in Candide
There is no end to the suffering described in Candide.
From the first chapter, in which the main character
is literally kicked out of his uncle’s castle, to the final
chapter, in which two viziers and a mufti are strangled
to death, Voltaire paints a grim portrait of the world’s
“moral and physical evil.” The theme of suffering
is present in many guises—natural, physical, and
philosophical—and Voltaire provides exaggerated
and improbable examples of it in order to emphasize
that all is not “for the very best.” The tale’s heavily
ironic tone contributes to this theme: Serious matters
are treated lightly so that the suffering the characters
endure—and cause—can serve as a lesson to readers.
Suffering induced by natural causes is introduced
in chapter 5, in which a violent storm rocks the boat
in which Candide, the Anabaptist, and Pangloss are
sailing. This storm leads to the Anabaptist’s death
by drowning, but only after he attempts to rescue
the man who actually kills him. Soon after the
boat’s arrival in Lisbon, a massive earthquake leaves
thousands dead. Pangloss’s response that “the more
private misfortunes there are, the more all is well” is
ridiculed, but the natural disaster is also a pretext for
criticizing the Catholic Church. Confronted with
inexplicable suffering, the church, rather than take
practical action to help those in need (as Candide
attempts to do), resorts to superstition and holds an
auto-da-fé to prevent future earthquakes. Its intol-
erance is also criticized. Pangloss and Candide are
both tortured because they disagree with an Inquisi-
tor: The former is hanged, the latter is flogged, and
two others are burnt at the stake. Even in the face
of horrific natural disasters, people retain the abil-
ity to make others suffer, thanks to a propensity for
violence, hypocrisy, and intolerance.
These are not the only examples of physical
suffering in Candide. In fact, the story reads like
a catalogue of violence: In chapter 2, the hero has
to choose between being shot or flogged; 30,000
soldiers die needlessly in chapter 3; in chapter 23,
an English admiral is made to walk the plank for
not having killed enough Frenchmen. Women are