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Corruption In Candide

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In Voltaire’s novel, Candide, he tells the story of his character named Candide and how he travels throughout the world and suffers through some very unfortunate events. Voltaire uses his novel to satirize many religious and philosophical beliefs that he perceives to be wrongs in his world. At the end of the book, Voltaire offers some suggestion, influenced by his own perspectives of the world, for how people can handle the corrupt happenings in society. At the beginning of Candide, the namesake of the book lived in the German province of Westphalia at the home of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh. Candide had a tutor named Dr. Pangloss who taught him that the world that they were living in was “the best of all possible worlds” (Voltaire 20), meaning that everything that happened in the world was for the best. Candide accepted Dr. Pangloss’s teaching as the ultimate truth. Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh also had a daughter, named Lady Cunegonde, who Candide thought himself to be in love with because she was so beautiful. One day, they were caught kissing by Lady Cunegonde’s father and the baron kicked Candide out of his home. After this, Candide wandered around and was soon recruited by the Bulgar army. However, Candide decided to talk a walk one day and was caught by other soldiers and whipped because they believed he was a deserter. Eventually Candide escaped the army and fled to Holland. In Holland, Candide met another character by the name of James the Anabaptist who offers

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