Aside from Candide and Pangloss, the character who suffers the most in this novel and demonstrates that the world is far from the best of all possible places is Cudgeon's servant, the old woman. ith the characterization of the old woman, Voltaire makes it quite clear that he is satirizing human suffering and the value of philosophy that seeks to endorse or even defend one's existence in such a cruel world. The old woman went from having the brightest of futures -- that of being a beautiful woman of noble and wealthy lineage preparing to marry a prince -- to the worst of all possible fates. She lived to see everyone that she cared for, including the prince she was to marry as well as her family members, killed and oftentimes raped. She herself is raped on numerous occasions, beaten savagely, taken advantage of, sold and resold into slavery, and…...

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Works Cited

Beck, Ervin. "Voltaire's Candide." Explicator57.4 (1999): 203. Literary Reference Center. Web. This is a rather interesting source that actually contextualizes the content of Candide in terms of the structure. Bech makes a number of eminent points that less prudent readers might very well miss. For example, he elucidates that the first 10 chapters of Candide occur in Europe, the next 10 take place in America, and the final 10 occur in Europe and Turkey.

Kerr, Calum a. "Voltaire's "Candide, or Optimism." Literary Contexts in Novels: Voltaire's 'Candide, or Optimism'(2008): 1. Literary Reference Center. Web. One of the most valuable aspects about this source is that it provides a comprehensive overview of the vents that transpire within Candide. It also analyzes the novel via a number of different lenses, including those pertaining to the social, religious, and biographical influences of the novel as they may have been viewed through Voltaire's time period. This is a good comprehensive overview to read before actually reading Voltaire's novel.

Ryden, Wendy. "Gateau or Baklava? The Price of Pastry in Voltaire's Philosophical Novel." Heldref Publications. 2009. 139-142. This source deals with the conclusion of Voltaire's novel, and the philosophical undercurrents that the conclusion suggests. The metaphor of Candide choosing to cultivate his garden while eschewing Pangloss' philosophy is elucidated. More importantly, this resource gives a prolonged look into the characterization Cudgeon and the disparate elements she represents in this tale.

Scherr, Arthur. "Candide's Pangloss: Voltaire's Tragicomic Hero." Romance Notes. 87-96. Print. This particular resource functions as a prolonged case study into the characterization of Pangloss. The author synthesizes several different outside sources while examining a number of different facets of Pangloss and the events that befell him in Candide. The malignity of his characterization is given due consideration, as well as the elements of both the tragic and the comic that Pangloss embodied. Most importantly, this source analyzes the progression of Pangloss and his philosophy, which actually does change and grow along with his student, Candide, throughout the progression of Voltaire's novel.

On the one hand his gesture can be interpreted as the desire to reconstruct the original garden of paradise. This hypothesis could be supported by the name of the character and the reader could understand that he maintains his innocence despite having seen and experienced the evil which characterizes the real world.
The fact that he dedicates himself to gardening also suggest that his awareness regarding the fact that if you want something, the best thing that you can do about it is try to achieve it on your own. Judging this situation from the perspective of the opposition between science and religion, the gesture becomes a symbol for the individual's freedom and force of will. In creating his own personal paradise, Candide demonstrates that he does not need anyone, not even god. His name receives other connotations under these circumstances and we come to understand his purity no longer…...

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Bibliography:

Voltaire, Candide or optimism- a new translation, backgrounds, criticism- a Norton critical edition (translated by Robert M. Adams), W.W Norton and co., 1966

Voltaire, Candide or optimism (translated by Cuffe, Theo, introduction by Wood, Michael), Penguin classics, Deluxe edition, 2005

Voltaire, Candide or optimism ( analyzed by professor Raffel, Burton), Yale uNiversity Press, 2006

Bernstein, Leonard, Candide, It's the best of all possible worlds!

Candide
LIFE IS WORTH LIVING

Voltaire earned much fame and criticism at the same time for his powerful crusade against injustice and bigotry, expressed in brilliant literature. He went up against the government and the Catholic hierarchy, particularly because of the Grand Inquisition. His character, Candide, was very much patterned after his own personality and experience, but his character begins by believing in goodness as prevailing in the world and ends the same way, despite his (Voltaire's) deadly cynicism. His famous phrase, "the best of possible worlds," has been his landmark, and the question that follows is, "what then are the others?"

He was the satirist par excellence of his time and considered the embodiment of the Enlightenment Period in the 18th century. A mix of success and suffering characterized his whole life, from poor health, to the disapproval of authorities, imprisonments and exiles, but more significantly, his achieving much fame for his…...

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Bibliography

1. Books and Writers. Voltaire. Amazon.com. (accessed 06:05:04). http://www.kirjasto.sci-fi/voltaire.htm

2. SparkNotes. Candide by Voltaire. SparkNotes LLC, Barnes and Noble Learning Network, 2000 (accessed 06:05:03).  http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/candide 

3. Sutton, Betty. History. (accessed 06:05:03). http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/voltaire3.htm

4. Voltaire. Candide. 1759. e-text. (accessed 06:05:03).  http://www.litrix.com/candide/candi001.htm

The group does not end up at a house or on the road or at a castle but in a garden, at work where new seeds can grow, yield produce and perhaps enhance the quality of life.
As members of a small group of individuals away from the world's corruption, they can each have a personal task as well as set and reach goals together. This, after all, is what society is: A group of individuals with similar values and beliefs that are working for the common good. The object is to try and destroy the weeds that will do their best to choke and eat away at the seedlings, so the plants can grow and provide food, shelter, clothing and other necessities.

Despite the horrors that all of them have seen and individually faced, they know that boredom, doing nothing, is a worst fate of all. The woman asks rhetorically…...

" (Voltaire, Chapter 30) as much as the reader might have suspected Pangloss' increasing embitterment, irrational emotional ties to creed, in the world of the novel, still hold true, although rather than believe him or attempt to show disrespect towards the former tutor who has proved so useless to him, Candide stresses that the mans remarks are "excellently observed...but let us cultivate our garden." (Voltaire, Chapter 30)
Let us, in other words, suggests both Candide and Voltaire -- the first time the author and the protagonist are really united in their sentiments and voice -- return to nature and the inner cultivation of the self and one's personal life and soul in an independent fashion, rather than debate outer, political philosophy that adheres to the ideology of others. This is an ideal that is the soon to be stomping ground of Romanticism, as depicted in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a work also…...

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Works Cited

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. E-text available at Online Literature. 2005/

 http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_mary/frankenstein/ 

Voltaire. Candide. E-text available at Online Literature. 2005/

 http://www.online-literature.com/voltaire/ candide

He has refused to see the world clearly for so long, that once he has no choice other than to apprehend reality with its full force, it hurts him to see Cunegund grown ugly and shrill, and himself in mean and reduced circumstances.
He resolves to find some inner strength and bear down upon his ill temperament, to make his garden grow and to take pleasure in the simple tasks of life -- but he has already seen and sacrificed El Dorado, the legendary city of paradise he resolved to leave. The residents of El Dorado were so wise they played with jewels because of their commonness. But the lack of concern for the real trappings wealth displayed by these citizens was unfortunately parallel to the lack of concern Candide showed for reality, because he was so determined to see the world only in the way he was taught --…...

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Works Cited

Voltaire. "Candide." Online Literature edition last updated 1999. 2 Dec 2004.  http://www.literature.org/authors/voltaire/candide/chapter-30.html

Candide written Voltaire. You Candide-Literture.org find story. It long. Here a web site
Characters

Candide

Young Baron

Cunegonde

The Old Woman

Cacambo

Pangloss

Paquette

Brother Giroflee

Dervish

Scene I: Candide's farm, a fairly lonesome plot of land with doting greenery lining the unkempt fields. In the back there are a few dilapidated farmhouses, anemic looking cows, and other visible signs that the place is in a state of decline. Candide stands before the Young Baron, an incredulous look smeared across his face. The Young Baron returns his glance with a look of defiance more befitting his father than a man of the Young Baron's stature; Cunegonde, virtually cock-eyed and drained from an overdose of sun and lack of luxury, anxiously taps her foot on the ground, looking between the two men nervously, yet remains silent.

Candide (struggling to restrain the smile that keeps tugging at his lips): "Again, good Baron, you maintain that this is your final position on the matter?…...

If there is a volcano at Lisbon it cannot be elsewhere. It is impossible that things should be other than they are; for everything is right'" (Voltaire 21). Candide seems incapable of coming up with many ideas on his own, but he is quite good a parroting the ideas of others, and Pangloss is his mentor and idol, so he follows his thoughts blindly, never questioning them or developing true reasoning and deduction skills throughout his adventures.
Throughout his experiences, the reader would expect Candide to become bitter and disillusioned with the real world. He is beaten, taken advantage of, conscribed into an army, nearly killed several times, accused of numerous crimes, and generally mistreated and abused wherever he goes. He also meets many unfortunate people who have suffered as much as he has, or even more. Yet he never questions the sanity of all this depravity, or what kind…...

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References

Voltaire. Candide. New York: Modern Library, 1918.

He realizes that a sense of fulfillment and a life well-lived comes from hard work and the simple things in life. The Turk explains the mystery behind hard work keeps the mind occupied. Through cultivating his estate with his children, he is keeping away "three great evils: boredom, vice, and need" (100). Through his interaction with the Turk, Candide realizes that every human being is responsible for making the world a better place to live. In order for this to happen, people must connect with one another and work to make the world a safe and pleasant place to live. People working on their lives is the symbolism found in the notion of people cultivating their own gardens. Candide's travels lead him all over the world where he realizes that good and evil exist everywhere. In fact, they must coexist in order for us to appreciate the good in…...

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Work Cited

Voltaire. Candide, Zadig and Selected Stories. New York: Signet Classics. 1961.

Voltaire's Title Character Candide: Fool, Hero, or Both?
The comic novel Candide, by 18th century French author Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (better known as "Voltaire") satirically attacks the pseudo-rationalist idea that human optimism alone (the actual title of the book is Candide, or Optimism) can counteract extremes of evil and cruelty, such as those continually endured by the novel's title character and his various friends: Cunegonde; Pangloss; Cunegonde's brother; the old woman; Cacambo; Martin, and others. Throughout most of the novel, Candide seems a hapless fool, for continuing to cling, in the face of much contrary evidence, to his tutor Pangloss's original world view, that "everything is for the best" (p. 521). However, Candide also later grows into a hero of sorts: brave; tenacious, and resilient. Ultimately he saves friends from cruel fates. Still, most of the time before that, we simultaneously pity him and laugh at him. Only at the…...

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Works Cited

Lawall, Sarah, and Maynard Mack. (Eds.). The Norton Anthology of World

Literature: 1650 to the Present, Vol. D (Pkg. 2). New York: Norton and Company, 2002. 518.

Voltaire, Francois-Marie Arouet De. "Candide, or Optimism." The Norton

Anthology of World Literature: 1650 to the Present, Vol. D (Pkg. 2). New

Candide
In his signature work Candide, French author Voltaire offers an extensive criticism of seventeenth and eighteenth-century social, cultural, and political realities. Aiming the brunt of his satirical attack on the elite strata of society, Voltaire simultaneously criticizes some liberal Enlightenment philosophies. Voltaire mocks the authority of both Church and State, showing the corruption inherent in each. Similarly, the novel points out the insipid arrogance of the aristocracy, especially via his relationship with the Baron and his family, all of whom except for his beloved Cunegonde remain farcically nameless throughout the novel. Although Voltaire sympathizes with the core values of Enlightenment thought such as social justice, reason, and egalitarianism, his novel demonstrates disappointment with the distortion of those values. Excess optimism, represented clearly by Pangloss, and excess pessimism, represented by Martin, are portrayed as the two impractical extremes of Enlightenment values in Candide. Furthermore, while Voltaire appreciates the burgeoning rationalism and…...

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Works Cited

Voltaire. Candide. Retrieved 28 July 2005 online from Literature.org at  http://www.literature.org/authors/voltaire/candide/index.html

Candide Journey
The Importance of Journey in Candide

In Voltaire's Candide, the titular protagonist and his companions go on many journeys to many different lands, some intentional and some less so. These journeys are highly important to the structure and nature of the novel, in more ways than one. First of all, they are standard and stereotypical devices that Voltaire purposefully satirizes and also brilliantly makes use of. They also relate directly to the philosophies that Voltaire has his characters discuss during the course of the novel, and are essential for illustrating and demonstrating many of his points. They also play a symbolic importance in the development of each of the characters. These journeys are essential to the story of Candide for reasons of narrative, philosophy, and symbolism.

There are several reasons that the journeys are essential for the narrative. Candide's first journey, following his banishment from the castle, is the inciting incident…...

Voltaire's "Candide" is several novels rolled into one. (Homer and Hull, 1978), he returns to the life of a commoner. His life has gone full circle. From flights of fancy, he derives pleasure from one of the most basic occupations -- farming. Voltaire's epic works at several levels. His disdain for philosophies at the cost of realism is evident. Pangloss, the "metaphysico-theologo-cosmonolonigolo" ic tutor is not particularly equipped when confronted with life's harsh realities. In the long run, there is a reversal of roles: from Candide's starry eyed wonderment of Pangloss' learning, to Pangloss' life at the pleasure of Candide.
The essay will argue that in keeping with the alternative title for Candide -- Optimism -- throughout the narrative, Candide always looks ahead to the future. His travails would have put paid to most people. ut his optimism and will to survive enables him to use all his abilities to protect…...

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Bibliography

Caddy, Caroline. Conquistadors. The Australian Poetry Series. Ringwood, Vic., Australia; New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books assisted by the Literature Board of the Australia Council, 1991.

Homer, and Denison Bingham Hull. Homer's Odyssey. Greenwich, Conn.: Hull, 1978.

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von. Essays of Theodicy on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil. Trans. F.M. Huggard. Ed. Austin Farrer. London: Routledge, 1952.

Mason, Haydn Trevor. Candide: Optimism Demolished. Twayne's Masterwork Studies; No. 104. New York, Toronto: Twayne Publishers; Maxwell Macmillan Canada; Maxwell Macmillan International, 1992.

he has lived through violence, rape, slavery, and betrayal and seen the ravages of war and greed. The old woman's story also functions as a criticism of religious hypocrisy. he is the daughter of the Pope, the most prominent member of the Catholic Church. The Pope has not only violated his vow of celibacy, but has also proven unable and unwilling to protect his daughter from the misfortunes that befell her.
Candide also displays this sense of hope in light of his many hardships. He honors his commitment to marry Cunegonde at the end of the story despite the physical abnormalities that have plagued her. Cunegonde is a young and beautiful woman at the beginning of Candide. Mirroring Candide's naive optimism, their love plays out in unrealistic romantic cliches: a blush, a dropped handkerchief, a surreptitious kiss behind a screen. However, this romance in the shelter of the Baron's estate…...

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Stromberg, Roland. "The Philosophes and the French Revolution: Reflections on Some Recent Research." Eighteenth-Century Studies 21: 321-339.

"Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire" Literature Network

 http://www.online-literature.com/voltaire/

arfare was obviously distasteful for Voltaire as he showed with 'Te deum' or the Christian hymn of thanksgiving. The soldiers of both the parties sing the song even though neither side was in a position to have won the battle. Voltaire showed that the atrocities of war would never be prevented even with international laws. As Voltaire depicted two armies present as a glorious spectacle, he was showing the terrible atmosphere that was created in the music and gunfire. Candide saw that on the battlefield that guns and bayonets would lead to more thirty thousand rogues death and Candide trembled in terror. So when the both kings and their armies sing 'Te Deum' only Candide seems to understand that both sides of the village are ruined. In summary, Voltaire is quite clear when he describes all that Candide saw from the shocking massacre of the community was the soldiers'…...

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Works Cited

Yahoo Education. Voltaire, Francois Marie Arouet de. Retrieved on 24 Jan. 2005, from  http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry?id=49637 .

Voltaire's Candide