In my report I will be giving an outline of Voltaire’s Candide and adding my opinion as well as comparing it with general thought of religious ideology in relation to Voltaire’s way of expressing this ideology in the book.

The beginning of the book begins in Westphalia where Candide lives. The characters introduced in the beginning are Pangloss, Candide’s personal tutor, stated to be the greatest philosopher in the area, the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh, which was the owner of the estate and one of the most influential noblemen of Westphalia, and Cunegonde the daughter of the Baroness, which leads to Candide’s expulsion from the Baron’s estate by means of a kiss between Cunegonde and Candide. Pangloss taught man

All things Voltaire shows in Candide still exist today: theft, persecution, murder, bribery, and many other corrupt things that occur. This book was relevant as a historical book due to the fact that although Candide is fiction I would believe this to be a true story of one mans life. I have read that certain characters Candide are based on historical figures and this is no surprise in a Europe of power and dishonesty. Being a religious person I reacted to this book well because of the ability to accept the known corruption of the church and I can imagine this book was not liked by religious people in the Enlightened Age of Europe. “It follows that those who maintain that all is right talk nonsense; they ought to say that all is for the best” stated Pangloss in chapter one. This book was written knowing that the outcome would wouldn’t be for the right (what religion attempts to stand for), but for the best (what the outcome reality hopes to bring).

In chapters two through six Candide goes through the process of being a soldier in the Bulgar’s army during the time they were at war with the Abarians. Candide’s recruitment was at an Inn of the neighboring town of Westphalia, where two men buy him food after he went through a complicated travel. He attempts to leave the military training and gets caught and chooses torture over death. The king of the Bulgars pardons his near death torture and then joins the fighting of the war. The glory of war was then described by Voltaire in the third chapter by showing the brutality of European war, cities burnt to ashes and so forth. Candide then escapes the war and flees to Holland under the impression of fellow Christian aid and yet he receives none. Fortune then strikes when he meets his old tutor Pangloss in a miserable state. A new character then appears, the Anabaptist, which means someone who is not baptized and/or against it. The Anabaptist has Pangloss healed and employed and then sets out to Lisbon where on the ship turbulence strikes and the Anabaptist is struck overboard. When

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