Chapter 1: Candide lives in the castle of the baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh in Westphalia. Candide is the illegitimate son of the baron’s sister. His mother refused to marry his father because his father’s family tree could only be traced through “seventy-one quarterings.” The castle’s tutor, Pangloss, teaches “metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology” and believes that this world is the “best of all possible worlds.” Candide listens to Pangloss with great attention and faith. Miss Cunégonde, the baron’s daughter, spies Pangloss and a maid, Paquette, engaged in a lesson in “experimental physics.” Seized with the desire for knowledge, she hurries to find Candide. They flirt and steal a kiss behind a screen. The baron catches them and banishes Candide.
Chapter 28: While the group travels to rescue Cunégonde, the baron and Pangloss tell their stories. The baron bears no ill will toward Candide for stabbing him. After his wound healed, Spanish troops attacked him and sent him to jail in Buenos Aires. The baron eventually returned to Rome to serve his Jesuit order, but was caught bathing naked with a young Turkish man and sent to the galleys.
The executioner who was to hang Pangloss was inexperienced in hangings and made the noose badly, so Pangloss survived. A surgeon bought Pangloss’s body for dissection. Pangloss regained consciousness after being cut open, and the startled surgeon sewed him closed again. Pangloss then traveled to Constantinople. He entered a mosque and saw a pretty young woman drop her nosegay from her bosom. Pangloss picked it up and returned it to her bosom “with the most respectful attentions.” Her male companion thought he was taking too long with it, so he had Pangloss arrested. Pangloss was then whipped and sent to the galleys. However, he still believes that pre-established harmony is the “finest notion in the world.”
1. What is the relationship between Candide’s adventures and Pangloss’s teachings?
Candide represents an