General

G1. In the short novel, how are the following subjects manifested and explored: (a) war and aggression; (b) religion and morality; (c) nationalism, nationality; (d) politics; (e) economics and commerce; (f) society (including social classes); (g) science and technology; (h) literature, art, nature; (i) love, romance, sex, gender behavior; (j) fate vs. free will? How do Voltaire's themes and ideas about these subjects in the work compare and contrast with the treatment of these topics in the works of earlier writers of this course?

G2. (a) How does Voltaire's Candide exhibit traits of Rococo and Neoclassical visual or musical fine art? (b) How is symmetry manifested in the work? (c1) How might the simplicity of diction (word choice) and brevity of sentences relate to any key trait or traits of Neoclassical visual art? (c2) How might the length of chapters and the length of the novel relate to any key trait or traits of Neoclassical visual art? (d) To what component of Classic music of this time might the constant reoccurrence of characters and ideas be related?

G3. (a) Both in prose style and reoccurrence of certain characters, how is a certain fairytale quality imparted in and by the literary work? (b) How do the events of the plot and traits of characters ironically and satirically contrast with the fairytale quality contributed by the elements mentioned in G3a?

G4. How are any of the following stylistic or imagistic motifs used thematically in the work: (a) growth and maturation; (b) homosexuality; (c) gardens and the pastoral; (d) fainting; (e) veils or screens; (f) shifts into present tense; (g) hero and heroic; (h) best of all possible; (i) sufficient reason or cause or effect?

Specific Questions, Chapter by Chapter

Chapter 1

1. (a) In P1, what satire on the German language, German temperament, and the aristocracy's view of itself can be found in the name given the Baron by Voltaire? (b) In P1, how does the narrator's allusion to the origin and etymology of the protagonist's name reveal key personality and behavioral traits of the work's title character? (c1) In P1, how does the Baron's sister's preferring to give birth to a bastard convey Voltaire's satire on the aristocracy's mania for empty ceremony or formality? (c2) How is this satire on empty ceremony or formality in P1 further conveyed by the revelation in P2 about how impressive the Baron's castle is?

2. (a) How is the narrator's adjective "mighty" satirically undercut in S1P2 by the architectural features of the castle praised in S1P2? (b) How do the architectural features of S1P2 satirize the uncivilized culture of Germany as well as the aristocracy's or nobility's unfounded pretentiousness? (c) In P2, how do the sumptuousness of life in the castle, the Baron's hunting routine, and what he insists on being called by the peasants all satirize German ethnocentrism? (d) Relative to 2c, how is the description of Pangloss's status in P6 a further hit at this German ethnocentrism?

3. In P3, how does the narrator's account of the Baroness being respected for her weight convey (a) Voltaire's deadpan irony, (b) satire on German women's physiques (cf. the twentieth-century stereotype of Russian and East German women or female athletes), (c) satire on the economic (and social) conditions of Germany at the time?

4. In P4, how does the length of the term designating Pangloss's subject satirize (a) academicians' pride or vanity as well as (b) scholars' obfuscation of truth?

5. In P5, how does Pangloss's foolishness depend on the fallacy of the misuse of "final cause" in Aristote's concept of definition? (In defining something, four "causes" can be used: the "formal cause," or what the component parts of the thing are; the "efficient cause," or who made the thing or what process was used to make it; the "material cause," or what substance or substances the thing is made out of; and the "final cause," or what purpose the thing serves. The "final cause" can be tricky, as in the instance of defining a table; it might be supposed that a table is a horizontal platform used to support things like books and notebooks at a library, or food and dinnerware in the home. However, workaholics in the business and academic world have been known to put a table to use, in the "final cause," as a bed, to catch a nap on.)

6. (a) In P7, how is the reference to "experimental physics" doubly ironic, given (a2) the discrepancy between this highfalutin name or description and the action carried on, and (a3) a sense in which the action carried on really does in some important ways illustrate principles of physics? (b) How does this term help specifically satirize Pangloss, academics, and scholarly behavior?

7. In P8, the chapter as a whole, and elsewhere in the work (e.g., Ch. 3, P1), how does Voltaire use the logical device of contradiction (a way of doing proofs in philosophy and logic) for satire, and satire of irrationality, as in the last portiion of the paragraph's last sentence, "everything was confusioin in the most beautiful and agreeable of all possible castles"?

Chapter 2

1. In P1, how is the German language satirized for cacophony, and how are German names satirized (and for what)?

2. (a) For what is the military satirized through how they recruit Candide (and presumably others)? What general moral or temperamental defects are satirized? (b) How are kings and military chiefs satirized for how they arrange regiments, through the description of how the Bulgar army regiments are arranged? What further joke is made here about the German methodical mind at work? (What similar funny, visual joke is made about the FBI [= the "FBR" in the film] and its chief in the three-and-a-half star comedy The President's Analyst [1967], starring James Coburn, Godfrey Cambridge, Severn Darden, et al.?)

3. (a) From Candide's experiences what is implied about military training and military justice, and how? (b) From the comparison of Candide to the other recruits in military training, what is implied about the intelligence of the other (German) recruits?

4. (a) How is the word hero repeatedly used satirically in this chapter? (b) How is the Bulgar king's clemency toward Candide shown (P18) to be motivated in part not for humanitarian reasons but for the very modern concern of public relations? (c) How is the Bulgar king's clemency undercut when two sentences later (P18) he decides to do something even more inhumane than the slaying of Candide?

Chapter 3

1. In P2-3, (a) how are politicians' (or statesmen's) duplicity and indifference to ordinary people conveyed? (b) How is religion satirized for hypocrisy or selling out?

2. (a) How does Voltaire use the logical device of enthymemes in P3 to satirize the rationality and humaneness of people in "having heard that everyone in that country was rich and a Christian, he felt confident of being treated as well as he had been . . . "? (b) How does the aforementioned sentence reduce to the following parts of an enthymeme (a syllogism, with parts implicit rather than explicitly stated): (1a) (All rich people treat others humanely); (2a) the people of Holland are rich; (3a) therefore, --------------- ? (1b) (All Christians treat others humanely); (2b) the people of Holland are Christians; (2c) therefore, ------------ ?

3. (a) How is Candide's befriending by an Anabaptist, James, symbolic and ironic in several respects? (b) How, using scatalogical imagery reminiscent of Gulliver's first meeting with the Yahoos, is Candide satirically and symbolically "baptized" into the real civilian Protestant world of Holland by the orator's (preacher's) wife? (c) How is Candide's treatment by the orator and orator's wife further ironic, considering the subject of the orator's sermon? (d) How might Anabaptism itself be considered a more rational, logical kind of religion or religious belief, given any of its principal tenets? (e) How does James show himself to be symbolically an Anabaptist in how he relates to the world around him (that is, how does James remain in any sense symbolically "unbaptized")?

4. What irony of manufacturing, very relevant to the late twentieth century, is satirically conveyed about Persian rugs (P12)?

5. How do the two halves of the chapter--Candide's military experiences and his first experiences in Holland--complementarily satirize the practice of institutionalized Christian religion? For what same points is institutionalized Christianity satirized in the chapter's two halves?

Chapter 4

1. In P9, (a) how is the etymology and root meaning of the Bulgar name (look up the English word bugger) ironically or satirically manifested, concerning what happens to the Baron's son? (b) How is revenge satirized as empty or pointless?

2. (a) What ironic parallel between "love" or passion in the military and civilian spheres is implied between the soldiers' behavior and experiences (P9) and Pangloss's and Candide's behavior and experiences (P11-15)? (b) What contrast between Petrarch and Chaucer (or Rabelais) is suggested, regarding the treatmenbt of love here? (c) What satire on religion emerges in the history (etiology) of the venereal disease that Dr. Pangloss contracted (P13)?

3. (a) How is the military satirized through the discussion of mercenaries (P15)? (b) How is the word honest used ironically to describe the two thirds of the mercenaries, given their medical condition? (c) How are kings, rulers, or politicians satirized with regard to the use of mercenaries in the military (P15)?

4. (a) How and for what are doctors satirized (P17), linking them with the Dutch Protestants of Ch. 3? (b) For what is the whole economic system, monetarism, criticized by James the Anabaptist (P19), linking it with the war described earlier in the chapter? (c) How are money and economics a unifying motif in the second half of this chapter?

5. At the end of Ch. 3, as well as in Ch. 4 (P18 and P20), pointed reference is made to Dr. Pangloss's loss of bodily parts. How is the loss of these bodily parts symbolic, in those parts lost, to Dr. Pangloss's defective philosophical perception of the universe and world?

Chapter 5

1. What does the storm at the end of Ch. 4 and the opening of Ch. 5 symbolize about both external nature (the natural world) and human nature (considering, also, people's behavior on the boat in the storm, and particularly that of the sailor)?

2. (a) Given James's religion of Anabaptism, as well as what it symbolizes (see question 3 on ch. 3), how is the manner of his death in this chapter ironic, and what ironic symbolism is suggested about how the world works in relation to people like James? (b) What is suggested (and how) about the benefits of benevolence through the details of James's death?

3. When the earthquake and fires break out (P3), how does Voltaire show that all four primary elements (in the ancient or medieval conception of these) are involved in violent and injurious disorder?

4. What foreshadowing occurs in Pangloss's mention of Lima (P10), and what expectation is raised about the possibility of escape from the world's seemingly inherent or innate violence and disorder?

Chapter 6

1. What irony or ironies may be found in the word fine used in both the title of the chapter as well as its first paragraph?

2. (a) What supposed logic of cause and effect does Catholicism assert between an auto-da-fe and disasters? (b) How is the auto-da-fe ironically revealed to be ineffective (P2), and what is thereby suggested about the rationality of Catholicism and religion? (c) How does Voltaire's satire on Catholicism parallel, symmetrically, what he satirizes in ch. 3? (d) How is Voltaire's universal inclusiveness shown by the relationship of what he satirizes in chs. 8-9 (Don Issachar) and 11 (P6)?

3. How is the irrational strictness of religion and religious laws (as well as human pettiness or self-interest) satirized by the nature of the "crimes" with which the auto-da-fe victims are charged and convicted (P2)

Chapter 7

1. (a) What is the symbolism of veiling and unveiling in this chapter, and how is it manifested? (b) Why does Cunegonde choose to regreet Candide veiled? What might her thinking, consciously or unconsciously, be here? (c) How is the symbolism of veiling or unveiling related to comments that Candide and Cunegonde make now (chs. 6-8) about Dr. Pangloss's philosophy?

2. How is the romance literary genre satirized through Cunegonde's statement to Candide "but one doesn't always die of these two accidents"(P14)?

3. (a) What optimism from Voltaire, what hymn to the durability and perseverance of humanity (humanism), is implied in Cunegonde's statement to Candide "but one doesn't always die of these two accidents"(P14)? (b) Is Voltaire right? Do people survive the sorts of things Cunegonde has survived?

Chapter 8

1. (a) How is Cunegonde's qualification--"not realizing that everything which had happened in my father's castle was a mere matter of routine"(P1) unwittingly ironic? (b) What satiric point is Voltaire making here about custom or routine?

2. What would a reader usually expect the motives to be of the soldier who rescues Cunegonde from rape and destruction, and how are these motives revealed, ironically, to be far different?

3. How does the fraternization of the Grand Inquisitor with Don Issachar with regard to Cunegonde (a) undercut the whole avowed purpose of the Inquisition, and (b) suggest what happens in a conflict between principles (or religion) and sex, particularly with regard to one of the genders?

4. (a) How are the sources of love satirized by how Cunegonde has kept the Grand Inquisitor and Don Issachar passionate? (b) What general point about human beings and their objects of desire is suggested here? Is this point true, in your experience or observation?

5. How does Voltaire satirize lovers for selfishly ignoring circumstances and thinking of sex, through Candide's statements about Cunegonde's scar and Cunegonde's announced dermatological observations at the auto-da-fe?

Chapter 9

1. How is Cunegonde's mild oath, referring to the Holy Virgin (P4), ironic, in the circumstances?

2. How do Candide's two main physical actions in this chapter, as well as Voltaire's description of them, illustrate (a) the natural swiftness and precision of thought when not burdened by academic philosophy, and (b) the beginning of Candide's maturation into practicality and pragmatism

3. How does Cunegonde's qualifying phrase "in my house" in her worry about "a man killed in my house"(P4) suggest that she has been contaminated by some of the world's values? Which values?

4. The Old Woman's reference to only one buttock (P11) begins a half-assed motif extending into chapters 9 (P11) and 10 (P6-P16). What ideas about the workings of the world does Voltaire convey or suggest through this motif?

Chapter 10

1. At the beginning of the chapter (P1), how do her thoughts about how to acquire money show that Cunegonde has gotten into a sort of mental rut or mind set, and that she has been somewhat corrupted by the world around her?

2. How is religion further satirized in this chapter through how Cunegonde has lost her money (P2)?

3. How is the word reason ("to reason with the Jesuit fathers in Paraguay") used ironically in P7? (Cf. How the words justifiable and honorable are used in P4 of ch. 5 of Part 4 of Gulliver's Travels. Cf. also the movie The Mission [1986], directed by Roland Jaffe and starring Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro.)

4. How, ironically, does his painful and unjust former military service (chs. 2-3) now serve Candide and his little group well?

Chapter 11

1. How does the story of the old woman (chs. 11-12), as well as what transformation she has undergone, foreshadow what will happen to Cunegonde later in the novel (chs. 29-30)?

2. How is the irrationality evoked by sex a main theme of this chapter?

3. (a) How and where is Islam satirized in this chapter, as in the circumstances surrounding the fighting over the newly arrived pirate ship and its cargo (P6)? How, at this point in the novel, have most of the world's major religions been satirized?

Chapter 12

1. (a) How is the (then) young woman's argumentative comment to the eunuch about there being worse discomfort than he suffers (P1) unwittingly and ironically self prophetic, about the young woman? (b) What comment is implied about youth and complacency here?

2. (a) How does Voltaire use the motif of cannibalism to comment on the conflict between reason and irrationality in this chapter? (b) How does the cannibalism motif connect Voltaire with Montaigne ("Of Cannibals") and Jonathan Swift (Book 4 of Gulliver's Travels)?

3. (a) How is there irony in the word laws in the physician's "consolation" to the female amputees "that it was according to the laws of war" (P16)? (b) What is implied about what happens to order and reason in war? (c) What connections may be seen between this passage and III.P2 and VIII.P1?

4. How in the penultimate and final paragraphs of the chapter (P17-18) does a signature passage on the ridiculous life-spirit and human love of life occur?

Chapter 13

1. (a) How might chs. 13-14 and 15-16 be at the heart of the novel not only arithmetically but thematically? (b) How do chs. 13-14 and 15-16 form (Neoclassically) symmetrical units in any way?

2. How in chs. 13-14 is the New World shown not to represent any change in unhappiness, self-seeking, and oppression that Candide has encountered in the Old World of Europe earlier, for instance in the first main event that happens regarding Candide and Cunegonde on their arrival?

3. Where does Candide again express some doubts about Dr. Pangloss's philosophy, having learned from the Old Woman's story (chs. 11-12), as well as from fellow passengers on the boat (P1, P3)?

4. (a) How, and for what, does Voltaire parody Spanish names (P1)? How does Voltaire's parody on this point in this chapter compare to his parody of the German names of the Baron (ch. 1, P1) and city (ch. 2, P1)? (b) Do people today still think that "foreigner's" names are odd and comical?

Chapter 14

1. (a) How is the philosophy that Cacambo expresses (P6) optimistic? (b) How is optimistic philosophy of Cacambo implied, later, in his initial words to Candide after Candide becomes concerned about what is scheduled for dinner with the Biglugs (ch. 16, P13)? (c) How is Cacambo's philosophy shown to have changed in ch. 27, and why has it changed by then?

2. What symbolism is suggested by details of the dress (and "accessorization") of the Jesuit commandant (P9)?

3. What faults in the Jesuits' Christianity are suggested through the imagery of feet and spurs (P8, P10), with reference to how people relate to the Jesuit Commandant?

4. (a) What symbolism is there in the arbor where Candide is allowed to eat on the Jesuit compound (P15)? (b) How does the arbor compare and contrast symbolically with the meadow that Candide and Cacambo encounter in ch. 16?

5. (a) What three kinds of humanity's ridiculous pride are satirized in the paragraph describing the commandant (P16)? (b) How does 5a foreshadow the outcome of Candide's proposition to the commandant in the next chapter (ch. 15)? 6. How does the commandant's revealed identity relate to Voltaire's theme of the endurance or perseverance of the human spirit?

7. (a) What joke is Voltaire making about Germans in the last sentence of the chapter's last paragraph? (b) How does 6a relate to the Baroness's main physical characteristic, described in ch. 1?

Chapter 15

1. (a) How is the young Baron's language in calling Candide "brother" and "savior" revealed to be hypocritical? (b) What motivates or causes the young Baron's hypocrisy? (c) What religious dimensions are suggested in the young Baron's terms (1a) and his hypocrisy?

2. How does the young Baron's quick reversion to pride and animosity relate to Henri Bergson's theory of comedy?

Chapter 16

1. (a) How are the noble sentiments that Candide expresses at the opening of the chapter (P1) ironically and immediately undercut by his contradictory actions revealed by the narator (P2)? (b) Where is a similar satiric contrast, focused on food, found in (the NAWM selections of) Cervantes' Don Quixote? (c) What aspects of human thought or behavior are being satirized, exactly?

2. (a) What positive and negative elements are there in the symbolism of the meadow setting that Candide and Cacambo happen upon (including, of course, what transpires on the meadow)? (b) What Biblical allusion, with both positive and negative suggestions, is implied by the meadow setting and actions transpiring in it?

3. (a) What is the symbolism of the name of the native tribe, the Big Lugs, that Candide and Cacambo encounter? (b) Since the French name, in the original French of the novelette, is Oreillons, which is probably from orejones, meaning 'big ears,' translator Robert M. Adams uses "Big Lugs" (with the slang meaning of "lug" as "ear"). How do these natural men, "savages" or "primitives," prove to be better listeners (probably the symbolism of their big ears) than so-called civilized modern Europeans (e.g., the young Baron in chs. 14-15)? (c) How does 3b relate to the suggestion that in some respects the Big Lugs are more reasonable and rational than modern Europeans (e.g., why they might have acted hastily and mistakenly, given the way Candide and Cacambo are dressed: i.e., how they could have been misled by mere appearance or surface)? (d) What does Voltaire seem to be implying about nature and the natural (cf. Candide's remarks in the final paragraph of this chapter) through 3a-3c? (e) With regard to the Big Lug women's behavior in the meadow, what negative aspects to the Big Lugs and close-to-nature people have? (f) What parallels can be found between this episode and Don Quixote's and Sancho Panza's sojourn with the goatherd and shepherd community where Marcela and Grisostomo roam (in Don Quixote)?

Chapter 17

1. How do chs. 14-15 and 16-17 form symmetrical units, on either side of the first and second halves of the novel, portraying something negative about the New World and something positive about it, respectively?

2. How are Candide's inveterate chauvinism and provincialism shown during his tour of El Dorado?

Chapter 18

1. How does the utopia of El Dorado reach backwards through Part 4 of Gulliver's Travels, Cervantes' Don Quixote, Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, and Castiglione's The Courtier?

2. As described by Voltaire in this chapter, what attributes does a utopia have?

Chapter 19

1. How are commercialism, especially Dutch commercialism, satirized in this chapter?

2. How does Voltaire satirize and criticize racism, specifically towards Black people, in this chapter?

Chapter 20

1. The name of the new character introduced in this chapter, Martin, probably alludes to Martin Luther and to Calvinism. What view of people and life does Martin, and, as implied by Voltaire, does Calvinism have?

2. What does Voltaire the narrator explicitly say about communication and argument in this chapter?

Chapter 21

1. How are Paris and France satirized in this chapter?

2. What points are made in the discussion about religion, via the discussions of the Bible and history, and humanity in this chapter?

Chapter 22

1. What satiric point about abstract science and mathematics does Voltaire make in this chapter, and how? How does Voltaire concur here with Swift in Swift's "A Modest Proposal"?

2. What further satiric points are made about Paris and France in this chapter?

3. What satiric points does Voltaire make about the drama or theater crowd in this chapter? About actors and the public?

Chapter 23

1. What brief satiric points are made about England in this chapter?

Chapter 24

1. When Candide meets (again! of course!) the former maid of Baron Thunder=Ten-Tronck's household, Paquette, how has her experience of men, like Cunegonde's, suggested that men are more like the Friar in Chaucer's General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales rather than the Knight, Oxford Sttrudent, or the Plowman in Chaucer's work?

Chapter 25

1. The surname of the Venetian gentleman visited by Candide and crew, Lord Pococurante, means "little caring." How is Pococurante, "little caring" in several ways?

2. What satiric points are made about the fine arts and literature in this chapter? What authors studied in Humanities 221 are commented on?

Chapter 26

1. How is the important concept of the Wheel of Fortune -- found also in Chaucer and Machiavelli -- depicted in this chapter?

Chapter 27

1. With regard to Cunegonde's physical appearance, as described in this chapter, how has Voltaire not adhered to an important fairytale element in the heroine?

Chapter 28

1. In the explanations of the young Baron and Dr. Pangloss (who have reappeared and haven't been killed, of course!) of how they wound up back in the slave galleys, what same weakness has each one relapsed to?

Chapter 29

1. How is the Baron's reaction to Candide's plan to marry Cunegonde comic? What defects of the Baron are portrayed?

2. How does Candide's treatment or punishment of the Baron (deciding whether to kill him or not) reveal Candide's maturation?

Chapter 30

1. What themes are revealed by the sentence repeated several times, throughout and in the conclusion of the last chapter, about gardens? Why has this sentence become one of the most famous in all of literature?

2. How do Candide's feelings about marrying Cunegonde represent Voltaire's satiric variation of the typical fairytale?