Notes on Candide
Since we got a bit off base during our discussion in class last Wednesday on the questions on Candide, I decided to type out my own notes to put us more on track.
1. “Moral evils” were defined in our text Philosophy of Religion as “evils brought about by the wrongful actions of persons and can be conceived broadly to include bad intentions and character traits” (p. 249). This really defines the cause of moral evils and fails to tell us what evil itself is. However, in our class discussion I think we came to some kind of consensus that evil itself is “suffering and pain” –the suffering and pain of a sentient creature. While that might be disputed, it is a useful definition for purposes of this exercise. In the light of it I would give the following list of the major moral evils depicted in Candide:
a) Social Snobbery and pride leads the Baron to throw Candide out of his home so he is completely destitute (p.p. 3 ff.): his son, the Jesuit, will never let Candide marry his sister (p. 76 and earlier)
b) War which causes individuals like Candide to be conscripted and their freedom completely taken away (p. 4); also, more seriously, which results in thousands of men being slaughtered for the glory of national leaders (p. 5), in this case King Frederick II of Prussia and Louis XV of France (this is part of what is called the Seven Years War or in this country, the “French and Indian War”; Prussia and England were allies); War also results in rape and murder of non-combatant civilians (p. 5, p. 15)
c) Religious intolerance and religious fanaticism (of Protestants against Catholics): this is illustrated by the Protestant preacher who refuses to help Candide because he doesn’t know that the Pope is the antichrist, and whose wife pores a bucket of shit on Candide’s head (p. 7).
d) Religious hypocrisy (of the Protestant preacher), who preaches charity and then turns away Candide when he is destitute; (of the Catholic clergy) the supposedly celibate Catholic Inquisitor who keeps a mistress (Cunégonde), the Franciscan friar who seduces Paquette spreads syphilis, and the monk Brother Gonflée seeks out prostitutes (p. 16; p. 8, p. 61)
d) Indiscriminate sex which causes the spread of sexually transmitted diseases: Paquette transmits syphilis to Pangloss: it is traced back to the sailors of Christopher Columbus who received it in the New World (p. 9). The pain and suffering which results is illustrated by the horrors of Pangloss’s symptoms
e) Ingratitude: the ingratitude of the sailor whose life has been saved by Jacques; the sailor makes no attempt to save Jacques himself (p. 10); Paquette and Brother Gonflee never take the trouble to thank Candide for the wealth he has given them (p. 67)
f) Greed and indifference to the suffering of others: the sailor who loots the ruins of Lisbon while the inhabitants are dying (p. 11)
g) Superstition and cruelty (of the Catholic Inquisition): people were burned to death in an auto-da-fé (literally, an act of faith), which is supposed to prevent earthquakes (pp. 12-13)
h) religious persecution: Anti-semitism which leads to two people suspected of secretly practicing Judaism being burned to death (p. 13) by the Catholic Inquisition in Lisbon; Martin is persecuted by preachers in Surinam because they think he is a Socinian (Socinians did no believe in the Trinity and denied original sin)
i) Sexual slavery of women: of both Cunnégonde and the former Princess of Palestrina, who becomes her servant (i.e. the Old Woman) (pp.15-17, pp. 20-25)
j) duplicity and fraud: the eunuch promises to take the Princess back to Italy sells her as slave (p. 26): the Dutch pirate steals Candide’s wealth in Surinam (p. 44); the abbot in Paris first befriends Candide and then has him arrested in order to extort money from him (p. 57)
k) Cannibalism: of the Turks who in extreme hunger while besieged kill and eat the eunuchs with them and cut off and eat the buttocks of their women concubines (p. 24): also the cannibalism of the Oreillons (p. 34)
l) the need to compete with others and to boast to others: Candide leaves Eldorado because of the need to be “special”; “Everyone likes to compete, …to boast…; they decided to stop being happy and to ask His Majesty for permission to leave” (p. 41)
m) slavery and cruelty to negroes for commercial gain: the negro slave has his leg cut off because he has tried to escapes from the sugar refinery in which works—after a hand has been cut off because his finger got caught in the machinery (pp. 42-3)
n) bad medical practice: this almost kills Candide when he is Paris (p. 50)
o) extortion and greed: local curate in Paris tries to force Candide to buy a certificate of orthodoxy to be buried in hollowed ground (p. 50)
p) prostitution: Paquette is left with little choice but to become a prostitute to survive and this leads to all kinds of misery for her (p. 61); hence prostitution is a moral evil!
q) wastefulness or prodigality: Paquette and Brother Gonflée waste all the money that has been given to them by Candide and end up destitute (as Martin predicts) (p. 62, 77)
r) Boredom with life and disgust with all art and literature: This is illustrated by Pococurante, the Venetian nobleman (pp.63-67); also by Candide and his friends when they first arrive on the farm; it is one of “the three dreadful evils” mentioned by the Turkish farmer (p. 78)
s) poverty: this is illustrated in the desperation of the Old Woman as she travels through Europe; also it is another of the three dreadful evils mentioned by the Turkish farmer (p. 78)
t) depravity: this is the third dreadful evil
mentioned by the Turkish farmer: the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as
“perversion of the moral faculties; corruption, viciousness, abandoned
wickedness.” A number of the character traits (greed, cruelty,
prodigality, indifference to human suffering, etc. would be considered to be
examples of human depravity)
2. Natural evils “are caused by impersonal objects and forces”
a) Storms: The ship carrying Candide, Pangloss and Jacques is sunk during a dreadful storm as they are approaching Lisbon (p. 10)
b) Earthquakes: The earthquake which struck Lisbon in 1755 and the resulting fire and tidal wave destroyed one of the most beautiful cities in Europe and caused mass death and destruction (pp. 11-13)
c) disease: the particular disease described in the book is syphilis (pp. 8-9); like AIDS today the disease is sexually transmitted, but it is no less a natural evil because of that.
3. Moral Virtues:
a) charity, generosity, courage: illustrated by the actions of Jacques the Anabaptist (pp. 7, 9, 10)
b) loyalty and friendship: illustrated by Cacambo’s faithfulness to Candide (e.g. pp. 69, 70)
c) being industrious: this is probably the most important virtue represented at the end of Candide in the conclusion when Candide says “we must work our land” (p. 79). The Turkish Farmer says that “works keep away” the three dreadful evils (p. 78)
d) hope: Even Martin, who seems such a pessimist, says “it is always a good idea to keep on hoping” (p. 67); perhaps it is this sentiment that Voltaire also reflects when he writes of the hope in the afterlife at the end of the “Poem on the Lisbon Disaster”
4. A satire is “a poem, or in modern use sometimes a prose composition, in which prevailing vices or follies are held up to ridicule” (See the Oxford English Dictionary at
http://0-dictionary.oed.com.catalog.lib.cmich.edu/entrance.dtl).
It is the philosophy of optimism which is the main thing being satirized in Candide, the philosophy which says that this is the best of all possible worlds and that everything that happens or exists is for the best. A good example is the ridiculous claim that the purpose of syphilis (which caused untold suffering and death) was to bring chocolate and cochineal to Europe (p, 9) or that the purpose of noses is to support glasses (p. 2).
Many human follies are held up to ridicule in Candide. The foolishness and uselessness of war is ridiculed on page 6. The lover (Candide) whose whole life is given meaning and hope by pursuing his beloved is held up to ridicule throughout.
On Monday, I will ask you for other examples of satire in Candide.
5. I will also ask you to tell me what character in Candide has the most tell us about human life.