"Cliff Notes - Candide" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

After they leave, the Holy Brotherhood, a type of religious police force, arrives. They bury the Grand Inquisitor and throw the Jew on a rubbish heap.

Voltaire's parody of the adventure story continues in Chapter 9 with the most dramatic episode in Candide's career. Chapter 9 is full of action and swordplay.

These incidents are the classic elements of an adventure story. But Voltaire's version is humorous and satirical. The humor comes from the author's choice of words and the frequent contrasts between the actions of romantic adventure and the language of mundane reality.

In this chapter, you get the idea that Candide is finally learning about this world. The philosophical justifications of earlier chapters yield to practical explanations for his rash actions. "My dear girl," replied Candide, "when a man is in love, jealous, and just whipped by the Inquisition, he is no longer himself."

The events of Chapter 9 move the story rapidly along and provide the impetus for Candide's voyage to the New World. He is fleeing the police, who are certain to want him for the murder of the Inquisitor.

NOTE: The old woman casually mentions, when they are about to leave on horseback, that she has only one buttock. This remark is left unexplained. She refers to that particular circumstance twice more in the following chapter, again without explanation. This is a type of humorous "teaser" to arouse your curiosity until the matter is finally explained in Chapter 12.

The entry of the Holy Brotherhood initiates the chase after Candide, which will resume in the New World. Voltaire also introduces this scene to show the contrast between the treatment of the Inquisitor and the Jew. The Inquisitor is buried in Church, while the Jew, at least as much a victim as the Inquisitor, is thrown on a pile of rubbish. However, you are also meant to notice how similar they are--in being dead!

^^^^^^^^^^CANDIDE: CHAPTER 10

At a stopover in a village inn, Cunegonde is robbed of her money and jewels. The old woman suspects that a Franciscan friar staying at the inn is the culprit. They sell one of their horses and ride on to Cadiz.

In Cadiz, Candide's skill with the Bulgar drill lands him a commission in an army being assembled to fight in Paraguay against the Jesuits. The army's task is to crush a rebellion led by the powerful Jesuits against the king of Spain. The trio, plus two servants, set sail for the New World. During the crossing, in the course of a discussion of Pangloss's philosophy, Candide expresses the hope of many Europeans of Voltaire's day, that the New World will be better than the Old.

Cunegonde, on the other hand, has little hope left after all her sufferings. The old woman claims to have suffered far worse trials. Cunegonde's skepticism inspires the old woman to tell her story.

Two prominent themes of Candide are developed further in the chapter. First, the biting satire of religion is continued. Three religious orders are mentioned--the Franciscans, the Benedictines, and the Jesuits; none of them is presented favorably.

The Franciscan is suspected of being a thief. The Benedictine buys the horse "cheap," implying that he drove a hard bargain. The Jesuits are accused of a more serious crime, inciting to rebellion.

NOTE: RELIGIOUS ORDERS Within the Roman Catholic Church, certain clergy, including priests, monks and nuns--also called brothers, friars, and sisters--belong to what are known as "religious orders." These are groups of men or women organized into communities and dedicated to following common rules of living and praying (generally, the rules of the founder).

Some orders, like the ancient Benedictines, founded in the 6th century, were at first monastic and lived apart from the world. Others, like the Jesuits (Society of Jesus), begun in 1539, were involved in the world as active missionaries, teachers, and even advisors to kings. The Franciscans, founded by St. Francis of Assisi in the 13th century as a reaction to earlier corruption of the clergy, began as wandering preachers devoted to a life of poverty. Though most orders shared an original commitment to maintaining the pure, spiritual life, many gradually became more and more involved in the material world.

Well before the 18th century, religious orders had been criticized frequently for their wealth, their meddling in political affairs, and their "worldliness." By "worldliness" was meant too great an attachment to the things of the world--to possessions, power, or pleasure--and not enough to spiritual matters. Voltaire's depiction of abuses by the religious orders is not unique. Lecherous priests and thieving monks were common in humorous works from the Middle Ages on. The English writer Chaucer (1340?-1400) and the Italian writer Boccaccio (1313-1375) both satirized the clergy in their great works, The Canterbury Tales and The Decameron.

The corruption and materialism of the clergy was one of the major issues in the development of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.

In this chapter, the object of religious satire is different from the object in Chapter 5. Great issues like fanaticism and intolerance are not mentioned here, but the corruption and worldliness of "religious orders" are exposed. At the heart of this corruption is the same hypocrisy you've seen already in the Protestant preacher in Holland. These "religious" characters obviously do not practice what they preach.

The second major theme treated in the chapter is, again, philosophical optimism. Notice the difference in attitude between Cunegonde and Candide as they set sail. Candide still hopes to find "the best of all possible worlds," but he is beginning to admit that, so far, all is not right in the world he knows. Cunegonde is more realistic, but because she feels so little hope, she is almost despondent.

Before Chapter 10 ends, Cunegonde announces a new theme--the theme of human misery and self-pity. If you've ever been really depressed and felt the whole world is against you, then maybe you can understand how Cunegonde feels. She thinks that she must be the most miserable woman in the world after all her troubles. Notice how the author plays with this theme in later chapters.

^^^^^^^^^^CANDIDE: CHAPTER 11

The old woman was not always an ugly servant, she tells Cunegonde, as she begins her fantastic story. In fact, as the daughter of a princess and a pope, she had been raised in great splendor. Famed for her beauty, she inspired poetry and songs. She was engaged to the prince of Massa Carrara. But the wedding never took place. The prince was murdered by his former mistress. In despair, the prince's young fiancee and her mother left by ship for Gaeta, a town in southern Italy. On the way they were captured by pirates. She was raped by the captain, who then carried her and her mother off to Morocco.

Morocco was in the midst of a terrible civil war. When they landed, they were attacked by a rival faction. All were slaughtered except the young woman, who was left for dead. She awoke to find a body pressing on her and to hear a voice murmuring in Italian.

The old woman's story is one of the most colorful episodes in the novel. Her narrative is highly charged with melodramatic extremes, from the ecstatic description of her own beauty to the horrors of the carnage on the beach. She speaks in a torrent of words, piling comparison upon comparison, superlative upon superlative.

In contrast to the drama of her story as a young woman is her matter-of-fact commentary as the old woman narrator. The old woman's attitude implies that there is really nothing so extraordinary in her experiences. Being seized by pirates and raped is, she now realizes, something that happens all the time in this world. Likewise, the strip search, which seemed so strange to her at the time, she now knows is simply a custom of the seas.