The Candide Quiz: "What Must the Others Be Like?"

Answer: Doctor Pangloss

Doctor Pangloss was based off of the real-life Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, who rationalized that since God is perfect, so are His creations. God must have created the best possible world, since He could not have done anything less. Voltaire thought this reasoning was so ridiculous that he wrote "Candide" just to make fun of it.

Answer: They're monkeys who are biting the girls

Candide sees two monkeys chasing young ladies, appearing to attack them. When he shoots the monkeys, the ladies break down crying over the loss of their paramours. It's satire at its finest.

Answer: El Dorado

In El Dorado, all the people are happy and thoughtful. All the streets are paved with gold, and the king tells only funny jokes. Candide wishes he could stay, but he feels he must leave to try and find his young love, who is held captive elsewhere.

Answer: She survives

Though she is thought to be dead for several chapters, Cunegonde is eventually rediscovered alive. When asked how she could possibly still be alive, Cunegonde points out that "people survive such things".

Answer: The priests try to hang him instead of burning him

Although they are supposed to burn Pangloss at the stake, the Portuguese Inquisition decides to hang him instead. And guess what? People survive such things. There are three characters in the novel who return from seemingly certain death: the Baron, Pangloss, and Cunegonde.

Answer: encourage the others

This execution was based on real-life Admiral John Byng, who was court-martialled and executed in 1757. Byng was convicted of not doing his best, and executed by firing squad. Voltaire saw such punishments as a warning to the admirals who were still alive... a message that it was better to die in combat rather than be executed in disgrace.

Answer: Buttock

Soldiers are about to eat the woman, when a religious leader commutes the cannibalism to one buttock only. The old woman's horrible life also includes several other cases of cannibalism, rape, slavery, and eunuchs. This all seems worse when you consider that the old woman was once the beautiful daughter of the Pope.

Answer: Kissing Cunegonde

Cunegonde's family never approves of Candide. Even after the young man has rescued Cunegonde and braved impossible odds, he still ends up stabbing, and apparently killing, her brother over his refusal to let Cunegonde marry someone of lesser class. Candide is a pretty prolific killer by the end of the novel, but he never feels good about it.

Answer: False

Pangloss has an unshakeable faith, even after all the horrors he's gone through. Even at the end of the novel, he reiterates that this must be the best possible world.

Answer: garden

It's hopefulness, Voltaire-style. Though the author rejects the idea of the world being the "best possible", he does believe that we must all strive to improve our world. Or garden.