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

Alone, penniless, and hungry, Candide is aided by two strangers who proceed to enroll him in the Bulgar army. After many troubles, Candide deserts and makes his way to Holland. Here, he is again aided, this time sincerely, by an honest merchant named Jacques.

Walking through town one day, Candide meets his old teacher, Pangloss. Pangloss tells Candide that the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh has been destroyed and its inhabitants have been savagely murdered. The philosopher himself is afflicted with the pox (syphilis) and has no money for a doctor. Jacques has Pangloss cured and gives him and Candide jobs.

Two months later, Pangloss, Jacques, and Candide set sail for Lisbon on business. Unfortunately, they are shipwrecked and Jacques is killed. Pangloss and Candide reach land just in time to experience the disastrous Lisbon earthquake. At a dinner for the survivors, Pangloss is questioned about his philosophical beliefs. His responses cause Pangloss and Candide to be arrested by the Inquisition. Pangloss's beliefs smack of heresy, and it was the Inquisition's job to stamp out heresy.

The Inquisition has planned a public execution of heretics to prevent further earthquakes. Candide and Pangloss are selected to be among the victims. Pangloss is hanged, but Candide, who only listened to heresy, is merely beaten and set free. As he leaves, Candide is stopped by an old woman, who first heals his wounds and then brings him to her mistress, Cunegonde.

Cunegonde tells the story of her escape from death and the adventures that brought her to Lisbon. Her tale is interrupted by the arrival of one of her patrons, Don Issachar, a Jewish merchant. Don Issachar lunges at Candide, who stabs and kills him. Barely has Candide had time to wipe his sword than Cunegonde's second patron, the Grand Inquisitor, arrives. Candide kills him, too, and on the advice of the old woman he, she, and Cunegonde take flight to Cadiz, Spain, where Candide is made a captain in the army being sent to fight the Jesuits in Paraguay. All three depart for the New World.

During the long voyage to Buenos Aires, the old woman tells her story. Like Cunegonde, she had once been a beautiful and desirable woman, betrothed to an Italian prince. After the murder of her fiance, she was captured by pirates, raped, and passed from one man to another across northern Africa. Finally, as her beauty faded, she became a servant, ending up in the household of Don Issachar.

When they arrive in Buenos Aires, the trio discover that they are being followed by the Spanish police, who are searching for the murderer of the Grand Inquisitor. Candide and his servant, Cacambo, leave Buenos Aires, hoping to find work as soldiers for the Jesuits this time. Cunegonde and the old woman remain in the city with the governor, who has taken a fancy to Cunegonde.

At the Jesuit camp, Candide meets the commander of the Jesuits, who is none other than Cunegonde's brother, the young baron. The happy reunion is ended when the baron refuses to allow Candide to marry his sister. Candide promptly stabs him, puts on the Jesuit's robe, and again takes flight with his faithful servant.

As he travels across Paraguay, Candide's adventures multiply. He is nearly eaten by the local Biglug Indians. Fortunately, however, as he has killed one of the Jesuits, the enemy of the Biglugs, he is set free and allowed to continue on his journey.

The journey is interrupted when Candide and Cacambo set themselves adrift in a canoe on an unknown river. The raging river carries them along. They crash on the shores of Eldorado, the golden country, where even the mud is gold and the pebbles in the road are diamonds and emeralds.

In Eldorado, Candide and Cacambo enjoy the hospitality of the Eldoradans, a peaceful, kindly people. After six weeks, the travelers are eager to leave. With the wealth they will be able to take back to Europe, they can live like kings, while in Eldorado they are just like everyone else. The king of Eldorado does not understand their reasoning, but he generously helps Candide and Cacambo to leave and presents them with a hundred red sheep, each one loaded with gold, diamonds, and provisions for the journey.

On their way to Surinam, on the northern coast, where they hope to find a ship for Europe, Candide and Cacambo lose all but two of the sheep. Once in Surinam, the two separate. Cacambo heads for Buenos Aires to ransom Cunegonde, while Candide looks for a ship to take him to Venice. Once again, Candide falls on hard times. He is swindled out of his last two sheep and is left with only the diamonds in his pockets. By now, he is disillusioned and seriously questions Pangloss's optimist philosophy of life. He wants only to leave South America and wait for Cunegonde in Venice. He picks a companion, Martin the scholar, from among the most miserable souls in Surinam and leaves for Europe.

Martin and Candide philosophize on their way across the ocean. The ship docks in Bordeaux, whereupon Candide, impelled by his curiosity, heads for Paris, a city he's heard much about. Again, the naive Candide is swindled; moreover, Paris being Paris, he is unfaithful to Cunegonde. With his supply of diamonds shrinking fast, he runs from Paris and sets sail for Venice.

In view of all his trials, Candide is feeling quite sorry for himself, but he clings to the hope of finding Cunegonde. He lingers in Venice, meeting Paquette, Baroness Thunder-ten-tronckh's former maid, and Paquette's lover, Brother Giroflee. Just as Candide is about to despair completely of ever hearing from his beloved Cunegonde, Cacambo, now a slave, appears and informs him that she is in Turkey. Candide, therefore, must be ready to sail immediately to Constantinople (Istanbul) with Cacambo and his new master. But he must ransom Cacambo in Constantinople before they can go on to find Cunegonde.

After Candide has ransomed Cacambo, they set sail for the nearby shores of Propontis (Sea of Marmara) to locate Cunegonde. Among the galley slaves are two familiar faces, Pangloss and the young baron. Both have miraculously survived. To Constantinople they all go. Candide ransoms Pangloss and the young baron, and then, many diamonds lighter, they sail on to Propontis and Cunegonde.

Cacambo reports that Cunegonde not only has become a servant but has grown hideously ugly. Candide thereupon feels somewhat less enthusiastic about marrying her, but resolves to keep his promise. When they arrive in Propontis, he finds that Cacambo's description is not exaggerated, but he ransoms Cunegonde and the old woman nonetheless.

He then marries Cunegonde over the objections of her brother, whom he ships back to the galley. With the last of his diamonds, he buys a farm. Paquette and Brother Giroflee join them there. Martin, Candide, and Pangloss continue their endless philosophical arguments. All sink into intolerable boredom until an encounter with a wise old man helps them to find contentment at last in work, in cultivating their "garden."


Many of the characters in Candide do not appear to be fully developed, complex characters. With the exception of Candide, they change very little in the course of the tale. Only at the end, in Chapter 30, as each one finds his niche on the farm, does the reader perceive a sense of change in most of the characters. But even this change is related directly to the meaning of the conclusion. There is no gradual transformation developing from an inner evolution of the character. The transformation is imposed from the outside, briefly stated by the author to emphasize his conclusion.

The reader has little knowledge of the characters' thoughts and emotions. You do not "know" the characters, you know only what they stand for and what their function in the story is.

Frequently, the characters, especially the minor ones, are "types": They are representative characters, not individuals. They may represent an idea, like Pangloss, or a social class, like the young baron. Voltaire is deliberate in his use of character types. He does not want you to be so involved with his characters that you forget what they stand for. For the chief goal of satire is to communicate an idea, to make the link between the fictional world and the real world very clear.

The use of character types does not necessarily imply that the author has created characters that are uninteresting or oversimple. But the characters, except for Candide himself, are important only as they relate to Candide and his education.

^^^^^^^^^^CANDIDE: CANDIDE

Candide (from the French, "pure, innocent, naive") is the focus of this tale. It is his story. With the exception of a few chapters of flashbacks, where other characters bring him up to date with regard to what has happened to them, he is present in every chapter. Other characters enter and leave the story. The reader always follows Candide.

Candide's story is an adventure and a romance. Some readers have seen it as the story of a young man's education, of his journey from naivete to maturity. He begins as a gullible, simple soul, with a naive faith in his teacher Pangloss. This faith allows him to believe that all is for the best in the world. As Candide's eyes are opened, he loses his belief in optimism. For a time, he has nothing to replace his former optimism, but in the final chapter he finds a new belief--in work as a means to contentment.

Candide's character evolves in various ways. He becomes more realistic and less idealistic. Always a questioner, he comes in time to modify his reactions to the answers he's given, in accordance with his newly gained experiences. At the beginning of the tale, for example, he accepts the optimist's justification for the evils he encounters. But as his journey continues, he questions how anything seen universally as evil can be for the best. At the end of the story, he begins to evaluate events as he sees them and is able to reject the answer "Everything is for the best."