Candide Essay -- essays research papers

Candide is the illegitimate nephew of a German baron. He grows up in the barons castle under the tutelage of the scholar Pangloss, who teaches him that this manhood is the best of all possible worlds. Candide falls in love with the barons young daughter, Cungonde. The baron catches the two kissing and expels Candide from his home. On his own for the first off time, Candide is soon conscripted into the army of the Bulgars. He wanders away from camp for a brief walk, and is brutally flogged as a deserter. After witnessing a horrific battle, he manages to exit and travels to Holland.In Holland, a kindly Anabaptist named Jacques takes Candide in. Candide runs into a deformed beggar and discovers that it is Pangloss. Pangloss explains that he has contracted syphilis and that Cungonde and her family have all been brutally murdered by the Bulgar army. Nonetheless, he maintains his optimistic outlook. Jacques takes Pangloss in as well. The three travel to capital of Portugal together, bu t before they arrive their ship runs into a storm and Jacques is drowned. Candide and Pangloss arrive in Lisbon to find it destroyed by an earthquake and under the control of the Inquisition. Pangloss is soon hanged as a heretic, and Candide is flogged for listening with approval to Panglosss philosophy. After his beating, an archaic charwoman dresses Candides wounds and then, to his astonishment, takes him to Cungonde. Cungonde explains that though the Bulgars kil take the rest of her family, she was merely raped and then captured by a captain, who sold her to a Jew named Don Isaachar. At present, she is a sex knuckle down jointly owned by Don Isaachar and the Grand Inquisitor of Lisbon. Each of Cungondes two owners arrive in turn as she and Candide are talking, and Candide kills them both. Terrified, Candide, the old woman, and Cungonde flee and board a ship bound for South America. During their journey, the old woman relates her own story. She was born the Popes daughter but h as suffered a litany of misfortunes that include rape, enslavement, and cannibalism.Candide and Cungonde plan to marry, but as soon as they arrive in Buenos Aires, the governor, Don Fernando, proposes to Cungonde. Thinking of her own financial welfare, she accepts. Authorities looking for the manslayer of the Grand Inquisitor arrive from Portugal in pursuit of Candide. Along with a newly acquired valet named Cacambo, Candid... ...to the latter category, because they will admit no exceptions. Like Pangloss, Martin abides by ideas that discourage any active efforts to change the world for the better. If, as Martin asserts, man is bound to live either in convulsions of misery or in the lethargy of boredom, wherefore should anyone try to rescue anyone else from convulsions of misery?CacamboCacambo sheds a subtle and interesting light on the philosophical themes of the novel. Unlike any other character in the novel, he inspires perfect confidence, both in his intelligence and his mora l uprightness. He knows both native American and European languages, and deals capably with both the Jesuits and the Biglugs. He suffers fewer down-to-earth misfortunes than any other character, less out of luck than because of his sharp wits, and he lives up to Candides trust when Candide sends him to fetch Cungonde. Any reader tempted to conclude that Voltaire has no faith in human nature must reconsider when faced with the example of Cacambo. Despite the optimism Cacambo inspires, however, he is no optimist himself. His wide experience of the world has led Cacambo to conclude that the law of nature teaches us to kill our neighbor.