Candide : personnages principaux et analyse

Ceux qui portent l'histoire

Personnages principaux

Candide

The naive hero, expelled from Edenic shelter and dragged through war, shipwreck, and the Inquisition while chasing Cunégonde across two continents. He ends up married, rich enough, and quietly done with philosophy — a gardener.

Apparaît dans :: Partie 1: Le paradis perdu, les verges et la potence; Partie 2: Le récit de la vieille et le Nouveau Monde; Partie 3: Richesses, ruine et un pessimiste pour compagnie; Partie 4: Six rois, un jardin
Thèmes :: Le problème du mal; L'optimisme comme complaisance; La folie du rang et de la richesse

Pangloss

Candide's tutor and the book's great fool: the professor of metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology who insists all is for the best through syphilis, hanging, and galley slavery. He survives everything and learns nothing.

Apparaît dans :: Partie 1: Le paradis perdu, les verges et la potence; Partie 3: Richesses, ruine et un pessimiste pour compagnie; Partie 4: Six rois, un jardin
Thèmes :: Le problème du mal; L'optimisme comme complaisance

Cunégonde

The Baron's daughter and Candide's love, passed between owners as a mistress and reduced to dishwashing slavery in Constantinople. She returns ugly and bad-tempered, and Candide marries her anyway — out of spite.

Apparaît dans :: Partie 1: Le paradis perdu, les verges et la potence; Partie 2: Le récit de la vieille et le Nouveau Monde; Partie 3: Richesses, ruine et un pessimiste pour compagnie; Partie 4: Six rois, un jardin
Thèmes :: La folie du rang et de la richesse; Le travail comme réponse

The Old Woman

Cunégonde's maid, illegitimate daughter of Pope Urban X, who has survived pirates, slavery, mutilation, and worse. She claims to have suffered more than anyone, and she's probably right.

Martin

A pessimistic Manichaean scholar Candide hires in Suriname as a traveling companion. He spends the voyage arguing that the world is full of fools and evil — and he's rarely wrong.

Apparaît dans :: Partie 3: Richesses, ruine et un pessimiste pour compagnie; Partie 4: Six rois, un jardin

Cacambo

Candide's resourceful valet in the Americas, the son of a mestizo father and an Indigenous mother. He talks them out of the cooking pot, finds El Dorado, and ends up a slave before delivering the news that saves the plot.

Apparaît dans :: Partie 2: Le récit de la vieille et le Nouveau Monde; Partie 3: Richesses, ruine et un pessimiste pour compagnie; Partie 4: Six rois, un jardin

The Baron (Cunégonde's brother)

The Jesuit colonel who survives his own stabbing, only to forbid Candide's marriage on grounds of nobility. Candide marries Cunégonde to spite him and sells him back to the galleys.

Apparaît dans :: Partie 1: Le paradis perdu, les verges et la potence; Partie 4: Six rois, un jardin

Aussi dans l'histoire

Personnages secondaires

Jacques the Anabaptist

The one genuinely good man in the book, a Dutch merchant who shelters Candide and pays to cure Pangloss. He drowns in Lisbon harbor saving a sailor who lets him die.

Apparaît dans :: Partie 1: Le paradis perdu, les verges et la potence
Thèmes :: Le problème du mal; L'optimisme comme complaisance

Les liens entre eux

Relations clés

Candide Cunégonde
The naive hero, expelled from Edenic shelter and dragged through war, shipwreck, and the Inquisition while chasing Cunégonde across two continents.
Pangloss Candide
Candide's tutor and the book's great fool: the professor of metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology who insists all is for the best through syphilis, hanging, and galley slavery.
Cunégonde The Baron (Cunégonde's brother)
The Baron's daughter and Candide's love, passed between owners as a mistress and reduced to dishwashing slavery in Constantinople.
The Old Woman Cunégonde
Cunégonde's maid, illegitimate daughter of Pope Urban X, who has survived pirates, slavery, mutilation, and worse.
Martin Candide
A pessimistic Manichaean scholar Candide hires in Suriname as a traveling companion.
Cacambo Candide
Candide's resourceful valet in the Americas, the son of a mestizo father and an Indigenous mother.
The Baron (Cunégonde's brother)Candide
The Jesuit colonel who survives his own stabbing, only to forbid Candide's marriage on grounds of nobility.
Jacques the Anabaptist Candide
The one genuinely good man in the book, a Dutch merchant who shelters Candide and pays to cure Pangloss.
Jacques the Anabaptist Pangloss
The one genuinely good man in the book, a Dutch merchant who shelters Candide and pays to cure Pangloss.

Aller plus loin

Candide : thèmes & symboles

Le problème du mal · L'optimisme comme complaisance · La folie du rang et de la richesse · Le travail comme réponse

Les thèmes expliqués

Lire le résumé complet de Candide

L'histoire partie par partie, la fin expliquée et un quiz express.

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