Résumé
Résumé de Candide
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love quick plots with an argument inside them, comic adventures and sharp portraits of kings and priests, and anyone curious about the Enlightenment.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Candide is a short comic novel by Voltaire, published in 1759. Voltaire was a French writer who spent his life attacking cruelty, superstition and easy answers. He wrote this tale quickly, and it was printed in several editions at once. It was banned in places, but it sold widely.
The book follows a good-natured young man who has been taught that everything happens for the best. Then he meets war, shipwreck, earthquake, slavery and the Inquisition. In about thirty brisk chapters it asks a hard question. How can anyone believe this is the best of all possible worlds? You get adventure, jokes, sharp portraits of kings and priests, and an argument you can follow without any training in philosophy. First, meet Candide in the castle where his lessons begin.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A Westphalian castle teaches perfect optimismFree
- 2Soldiers and storms break the young man's faith
- 3Cunégonde returns and flight becomes a way of life
- 4Eldorado shows a world that works, and Candide leaves it
- 5Martin the pessimist walks beside him
- 6What the satire attacks and how it is built
Point clé 1 sur 6
A Westphalian castle teaches perfect optimism
The story opens in Westphalia, in the castle of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh. It is a small German estate, yet its owners think it grand. Here lives Candide, a young man of gentle character and simple mind. People say he is the son of the baron's sister and a local gentleman whose family tree was too short for the baron's pride.
Candide's teacher is Doctor Pangloss, who gives lessons in what he calls metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology. His central doctrine is that this is the best of all possible worlds. Every effect has a cause, he says, and every cause serves a good end. Noses were made to carry spectacles, so we have spectacles. Legs were made for stockings, so we wear stockings.
Voltaire is mocking a real school of thought. Pangloss repeats, in a silly form, the ideas of the German thinker Leibniz, who argued that God would choose the best possible world. Voltaire's point is that such a view sounds clever and costs nothing until real suffering arrives. The castle is the perfect place to hold the idea, because nothing there has yet tested it.
The lesson ends one day when Candide kisses Cunégonde, the baron's daughter, behind a screen. The baron sees them. He drives Candide out of the castle with kicks, and the paradise Pangloss described is gone in a moment. The young man walks into a cold world with only his teacher's words to guide him. Those words are about to be tried.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
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Who’s who
- Candide
- A kind young man raised in a Westphalian castle, Candide trusts his tutor and loves the baron's daughter, Cunégonde.
- Doctor Pangloss
- Candide's tutor teaches that everything happens for the best, defending this belief against every apparent objection.
- Cunégonde
- The baron's daughter and Candide's beloved, Cunégonde grows up in the castle where Pangloss teaches.
- The Old Woman
- A practical companion to Cunégonde, the Old Woman brings hard experience to Candide's encounters with suffering.
- Cacambo
- Candide's resourceful South American valet, Cacambo supplies practical judgment and loyalty when his master faces trouble.
- Martin
- A poor scholar who accompanies Candide toward Europe, Martin counters Pangloss's optimism with deep distrust of humanity.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 37,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 2 h 25 min
- Listening time4 h 5 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary; paperback, hardcover and large print at cost
- LanguagesEnglish and 11 other languages