Candide

Summary

A champion of the Enlightenment and one of France’s greatest cynics and literary satirists, Voltaire was always quick to attack tyranny, bigotry, intolerance, persecution, and prejudice wherever they reared their ugly heads. One of his favorite weapons was the “philosophic story,” of which the satiric novel Candide was his most famous and finest.

The Baron’s daughter is attempting to study cause and effect with the guileless young Candide when the Baron discovers their lesson. Suddenly Candide finds himself unceremoniously kicked out of the castle, along with his tutor, the good and blindly optimistic Dr. Pangloss. As the two search out firsthand the answers to life’s perennial mysteries, they suffer a multitude of horrible disasters, from burning at the stake to polite society itself.