Reading Notes W4: Voltaire, Part A

Voltaire (352-373)

  • Voltaire was such an outspoken and no filter writer that his work landed him in prison and in exile more than once
  • He spent 3 years in exile in England - he then met Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope
  • Voltaire wasn't an atheist, but a Deism - "faith in a God who created the world and then stands back, allowing nature to follow its own laws and never intervening" (Voltaire 353)
  • By the time Voltaire died, he was known as a national hero
  • He wrote about genuine  social problems like: "military discipline, class hierarchy, greed, religious extremism, slavery, and even the publishing industry" (354)
  • Voltaire demanded his readers to face these horrors when reading his work, he wanted confrontation to be done
Chapter 1

  •  Candide, a young man, lives in the castle of the Baron of Thunder-Ten-Tronckh
  • Candide listened to all of Pangloss's, the castles tutor, lectures with good faith and character
  • He gets kicked out of the castle after getting caught for kissing Miss Cunegonde
Chapter 2

  • Candide wanders to the next town where two men find him beaten up 
  • They give him money and feed him 
  • Four soldiers capture him and make him run the gauntlet
  • His wounds heal in time to serve war between Bulgars and the Abares
Chapter 3

  • Candide escapes war and goes to Holland
  • Jacques takes Candide home and revives his faith in Pangloss's theory
  • Candide says, "Master Pangloss was right indeed when he told me everything is for the best in this world" (359)
Chapter 4

  •  Candide finds a beggar and doesn't realize it is Pangloss
  • Bulgars attacked the baron's castle and killed the baron, his wife, his sons, and raped and murdered Cunegonde
  • Pangloss tells Candide he has syphilis
Chapter 5

  • A storm takes over Candide's ship on its way to Lisbon
  • "Half of the passengers, weakened by the frightful anguish of seasickness and the distress of tossing about on stormy waters, were incapable of noticing their danger" (361)
  • Pangloss and Candide help the wounded
  • The earthquake wiped out three quarters of Lisbon
Chapter 6

  • Portuguese authorities burn people alive to prevent future earthquakes
  • The authorities hang Pangloss for his opinions and beliefs 
  • Candide starts to doubt  "the best of all possible worlds"
Chapter 7

  • An old woman treats Candide's wounds and takes care of him
  • The lady leads Candide to Miss Cunegonde
Chapter 8

  • Cunegonde tells her story of what happened when the village was attacked
  • She explains that the bulgars killed her family
  • She was taken as a mistress by a bulgar captain and then sold to a Jew
  • Cunegonde was the one who told the old woman to bring Candide to her
Chapter 9

  • The Jew Cunegonde was sold to, Don Issachar, attacks Candide when he found them two alone together
  • Candide kills off Don Isaachar
Chapter 10

  • The old woman scolds at Cunegonde for complaining because Cunegonde hasn't suffered as much as the old woman has
Chapter 11

  • The old woman now tells her story
  • She was raised in a wealthy family 
  • Her mother and her set sail but pirates boarded the ship and raped them and sold them as slaves
Chapter 12

  • She continues her story...
  • The plague swept through Algiers killing the prince
  • The old woman was sold several times 
  • She was taken to Moscow and was beat daily for two years by a nobleman
  • She worked as a servant in Russia
  • The old woman wondered why people still choose to live even though life can seemed to be cursed
  • She tells Candide and Cunegonde, "Ask every passenger on this ship to tell you his story, and if you find a single one who has not often cursed the day of his birth, who has not often told himself that he is the most miserable of men, then you may throw me overboard head first" (373)

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