Candide deals with the problems of suffering and evil. Voltaire attacks the hopelessness and callousness of the "all is for the best" philosophy, personified by tutor Pangloss. The resilience of human nature is emphasized in the amazing reversals of fortune which Candide and his friends survive.
The eponymous young hero and his friends move through a series of tortures, tragedies and reversals of fortune, in the company of Pangloss, a metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigologist of unflinching optimism.
Brought up in the household of a powerful Baron, Candide is an open-minded young man, whose tutor, Pangloss, has instilled in him the belief that 'all is for the best'. But when his love for the Baron's rosy-cheeked daughter is discovered, Candide is cast out to make his own way in the world. And so he and his various companions begin a breathless ...more