Candide by Voltaire
There is, however, an even more important reason for Voltaire’s choice of a chronological ordering—one that implicitly criticizes the wish-fulfillment dream of romance. In the Heliodoran tradition, the in medias res beginning makes the hero and heroine question their faith in divine providence; when we reach the “long-awaited joy” that Amyot finds in the ending, that faith is restored. In Candide, the hero’s hopes for a happy ending are tied up with the causal logic of Pangloss’s optimism. Thus a chronological narrative, with all of the improbability of romance, makes even more absurd the Panglossian notion that seemingly adventitious events will result in the best of all possible worlds.
Voltaire uses romance conventions to lead the reader through a process of disillusionment with romance just as Candide is to be disillusioned with Pangloss’s philosophy. An understanding of the Heliodoran novel conventions thus sharpens our awareness of modes of irony in Voltaire’s characterization.
Candide is cast in a romance role, even though his character suggests conventions of the picaresque. Like Tom Jones after his dismissal from Paradise Hall, when Candide is booted from the Baron’s “paradis terrestre,” he seems destined to wander “sans savoir où” (122) [5]; his destiny, like Jones’s, seems to be that of the picaro. Yet, like Tom Jones, Candide nevertheless dwells on the heroine, and he soon finds himself praising her in a company of soldiers. He thus follows the pattern of the heroes in the Aethiopica, the Persiles, the Grand Cyrus, and the Ibrahim, who all go to war after their initial separation from their mistresses. Although in the Heliodoran novel this convention lends heroism to their roles as lovers, in Voltaire’s novel Candide’s romance heroism is undercut by realistic struggles. Not only does he encounter the savagery of war, but Voltaire ironically qualifies his heroic stature. He is predicted to be “le soutien, le défenseur, le héros des Bulgares” (123) [6], yet he fails to understand either his heroic potential or the realistic motives of the Bulgar recruiter. By undercutting Candide’s heroic potential, Voltaire places Candide in a wasteland between romance and realism: he can neither be a romance hero nor, because of his Panglossian optimism, can he understand the realities of war.
Other conventions of the romance hero are negated and inverted in Candide’s character as well. Theagenes, Periandro, Ibrahim, and others are depicted as noble lovers; their physical appearance mirrors both their heroic nature and their noble love. Periandro, for example, is described as “more beautifull than could be well expressed” (Persiles 2). Similarly, Ibrahim is described, with elaborate rhetorical embellishment, as noble and heroic:
His Physiognomy was promising and sprightful; his soul was seen in his eyes, his courage and affability appeared equally in them; and without having ought of the beauty of a woman, he was goodliest man that ever was beheld. In fine there was seen in his whole person, a lofty ayr without pride, a gallanterie without affectation, a neglectful handsomeness, a freeness without artifice, a civility without restraint, and something so great and so high therein, as one could not behold him without judging him to be worthy to bear a crown. (Scudéry 373)
It is not difficult to see from this passage the degree to which Voltaire ironically compresses romance embellishment in chapter 1: “Sa physionomie annonçait son âme” (118) [3]. Innocent in appearance, Candide is innocent in spirit and name—a trait that replaces the conventional romance hero’s courage.
Even though Candide lacks the conventional prowess of the hero in Heliodoran novel, he possesses that hero’s conventional idealism about love. After his first reunion with the heroine (ch. 6), he is conventionally jealous (a device used for narrative complication in the Heliodoran novel); but unlike Theagenes, Periandro, or even Cyrus, Candide’s jealousy quickly forsakes romance idealism and stretches toward deterministic realism: “Ma belle demoiselle, répondit Candide, quand on est amoureux, jaloux, et fouetté par l’Inquisition, on ne se connaît plus” (149) [20]. It would not be surprising to find Cyrus or Ibrahim so casual about the enemies he had vanquished, but Candide’s reaction seems naivete, rather than heroic pride.
During his second separation from Cunégonde, comprising the second half of the novel, Candide is again cast in a romance role. Like Periandro, Cyrus, and Ibrahim, he is filled with romance aspirations: “il espérait toujours revoir mademoiselle Cunégonde” (201) [47]. His hopes are sustained despite Martin’s pessimism and despite his own mounting frustration. Even after being deceived in Paris by a false Cunégonde (an episode recalling a variety of romance episodes), Candide remains naively optimistic. When he expects to find his mistress in Venice, he is overcome with Panglossian hope and believes: “Tout est bien, tout va bien, tout va le mieux qu’il soit possible” (224) [61]. This romance hopefulness reaches its height in chapter 27, on the journey to Constantinople, during which Candide discovers that Cunégonde has become quite ugly. He remarks in the manner of a gentleman and a romance hero: “Ah! belle ou laide … je suis honnête homme, et mon devoir est de l’aimer toujours” (244) [72]. Devoir, of course, suggests distinctively romance motivations, but in light of her change in appearance, these motivations suggest a resignation to an unhappy fate.
Cunégonde’s character, like the hero’s, parallels the basic pattern of the heroine in the Heliodoran novel, but unlike Candide’s, her very role inverts romance behavior. In the Heliodoran novel the heroine is distinguished by her nobility, beauty, and intelligence. Chariclea’s and Auristela’s beauty make them forever the object of desire by virtually every male they encounter. Yet because of the conventional powers associated with their chastity, their virtue survives whatever attacks are made on it. Similarly, their nobility, even though concealed, manages to survive all attempts to taint it: captured by pirates, sold as slaves, the heroines are always treated royally. Even their jewels, the concealed evidence of their noble births, always remain in their possession. In addition, each possesses the wit to deceive assailants—a quality that enhances a romance belief in wish-fulfillment.
Cunégonde directly parodies this pattern. Chastity, we learn at the outset, is not one of her strong points. Unlike Chariclea and Auristela, who withstand every attack, Cunégonde’s virginity is quickly dispatched by the Bulgar soldiers. Although Heliodoran novel heroines typically pit one rival against another, preserving their own chastity by a combination of duplicity and delay, Cunégonde treats her lovers with duplicity but not delay. She plays the Jew off against the Inquisitor for material gain. Indeed, instead of inflexible fidelity to the hero, she seems quite willing to abandon Candide in Buenos Aires.
Like the conventional romance heroine, Cunégonde is of noble birth, although only the daughter of a minor Westphalian baron. Yet, even this small degree of nobility is made ignoble. Taken captive after her rape in Germany, she is forced to become cook, laundress, dishwasher, and pastry cook—menial tasks that a romance heroine would never undertake. In spite of all these vicissitudes, her brother still insists that she cannot marry Candide because he is not her equal. Like Chariclea and Auristela, Cunégonde possesses some jewels that should function as marks of her nobility, yet these are the results of her affairs with the Jew and the Inquisitor. Furthermore, the jewels are stolen, in direct violation of their function in the Heliodoran novel. Whereas the beauty of Chariclea and Auristela is pure and heavenly—a parallel to their virtue—Cunégonde’s is less rarefied. Hers is an earthly, even earthy beauty, she is “haute en couleur, fraîche, grasse, appétissante” (119) [3]. Her plump beauty comically inverts the conventional flower and jewel clichés found in the embellished descriptions of romance heroines; indeed she sounds more like a pastry than a rarefied flower or gem.
Although the realistic way in which Voltaire depicts Cunégonde seems to negate her romance role, there are nevertheless a variety of incidents that parallel romance conventions of the Heliodoran novel. In works like the Aethiopica and the Persiles, the initial separation of the lovers seems permanent—often because either the hero or the heroine is assumed to be dead. When the lover is “res
In novelistic terms Cunégonde’s resurrection is contrived and improbable, but it is a contrivance and an improbability that Voltaire tacitly invites the reader to accept. Instead of reassuring us of the designs of providence, her resurrection convinces us of the caprices of fate. Although it momentarily restores Candide’s faith in the best of all possible worlds, her resurrection makes us laugh at its unreality rather than hope, along with Candide, for the couple’s eventual happiness. Apparent deaths and miraculous resurrections occur thrice more: two times with the younger Baron and once with Pangloss. It is as if Voltaire is stretching the convention to its breaking point.
After the second reunion of the hero and the heroine in the penultimate chapter, even Candide’s romance hopes are negated. In the Heliodoran novel the heroines survive the ravages of time and travel; in fact, at the end they are frequently more beautiful than when they set out. Much the reverse, Cunégonde’s beauty disappears entirely. After Candide’s long quest, he finds the heroine dishearteningly ugly: “rembrunie, les yeux éraillés, la gorge sèche, le joues ridées, les bras rouges et écaillés” (252) [77]. Her physical appearance is purposefully the reverse of the rosy cheeks, coral lips, and marble skin of the romance heroine. And just as the beauty of the romance heroine mirrors her virtue, Cunégonde’s ugliness suggests her lack of it. Whereas the constant beauty of the romance heroine kindles the hero’s hopes, the change in Cunégonde’s appearance sparks Candide’s final demystification.
That Cunégonde should turn out to be ugly at the end of the journey suggests a further parallel with the Persiles. In the last book of Cervantes’s novel, after Auristela and Periandro arrive in Rome, the hero is besieged by a worldly-wise courtesan, Hipólita who, when she fails to win him by seduction, attempts to destroy what she believes is causing his fidelity to the heroine: Auristela’s beauty. Hipólita thus arranges with a witch to afflict Auristela with an infirmity that will make her ugly. Almost immediately, the heroine’s poetic beauty disappears: “It was not above two houres after shee fell sicke, but the naturall roses of her cheeks were of a leaden colour; the carnation of her lippes wanne; and the pearles of her teeth, black” (Persiles 377). The traditional features that define Auristela’s beauty are momentarily destroyed, but they are restored when she recovers. Periandro, all the while, is perfectly constant in his affections. In Cervantes’s novel, the ugliness afflicting Auristela is temporary: it is the revenge of an evil spirit, and it ultimately serves as a final test for the hero. In Voltaire’s novel, Cunégonde’s ugliness is permanent, unpoetic, real: the revenge of time and work. It eradicates any hope for a conventional romance ending.
Like Periandro, Candide is initially constant in his affections. When he learns of Cunégonde’s ugliness, he promises to love her forever. Yet when he meets her face to face, her appearance causes him to react with a horror born of disillusionment and to recoil “trois pas saisi d’horreur” (252) [77]. This negation of romance convention is evident also in the cause-effect relationship surrounding the change in the heroine’s beauty. Hipólita’s design was to remove, by sorcery, the cause of Periandro’s love. Although there is no sorcery in Voltaire’s novel, Cunégonde’s ugliness certainly removes the last possible source of Candide’s optimism—his hope that, when he reunites with Cunégonde, all will be for the best.
Voltaire’s use of romance conventions is not merely parodic, although parodic elements are present. His compression of narrative recitals, for instance, clearly parodies the use of those devices in the heroic novel. As Pierre de Saint Victor notes (383–84), the compression not only parodies the convention but also makes the reader aware of the aesthetic distance separating the reader and the author. La vieille remarks that she would not have told her story if it were not conventional to recite personal histories on board ships. Chapter titles also are more direct signals to the reader that the author is telescoping romance conventions. The title of chapter 5, for example, jumbles a series of romance devices: “Tempête, naufrage, tremblement de terre, et ce qui advint du docteur Pangloss, de Candide, et de l’anabaptiste Jacques” (134) [12].
For the most part, however, Voltaire is less concerned with making light of the literary excesses of romance than with using the romance conventions to shock the reader, as he has shocked Candide, into reality. Indeed, at the end of the novel he pokes fun at the expectations of a romance ending: “Il était tout naturel d’imaginer qu’après tant de désastres, Candide marié avec sa maîtresse, et vivant avec le philosophe Pangloss, le philosophe Martin, le prudent Cacambo et la vieille, ayant d’ailleurs rapporté tant de diamans de la patrie des anciens Incas, mènerait la vie du monde la plus agréable” (254) [78]. This is a penultimate smile before the final twist. The possibilities of a romance ending grow more and more remote as Cunégonde becomes uglier every day and as Martin and Pangloss become more contentious.
The ending of the novel thus presents us with a deliberate negation of romance conventions. In the Heliodoran novel, the marriage of the hero and heroine almost always occurs near the last page. Little remains to be said, for a romance world view implies a prosperous life. Voltaire, however, leaves us with a realist’s analysis of such a view. He extends the characters’ lives a page or two beyond the conventional finale. Martin and Pangloss argue; Cunégonde cooks; Paquette embroiders; and Candide, at last, resigns himself to the necessity of work.
Works Cited
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Forcione, Alban K. Cervantes, Aristotle, and the Persiles. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1970.
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† From South Atlantic Review 50 (1985): 35–46. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. Page numbers in brackets refer to the print version of this Norton Critical Edition.
1. Jacques Van den Heuvel sees Candide as parodying romanesque forms and using the realistic elements of the picaresque. He argues that Voltaire parodies the surprising accidents of the adventure novel but also derides the dreams on which such a romance view is founded. Pierre de Saint Victor notes that, unlike Voltaire’s other contes, Candide relies on the formal literary artifices of romance narratives to establish aesthetic distance. For other discussions of Candide and the adventure novel genre see: Barber (13–14), Bonneville (282–87), Bottiglia (134–35; 201–02), Mc Ghee (13–14), Morize (L), Sareil (77–88).
2. Works I call the Heliodoran novel, such as Cervantes’s Persiles, are often given the confusing label novela bizantina in Spanish literary historiography. Yet post-classical Greek works such as the Aethiopica antedated Byzantine civilization, and the very label “Byzantine” connotes an intricacy of structure and an ornateness of style that is not present in the sixteenth-century and seventeenth-century works influenced by Heliodorus.