Candide · Chapter
II: What Became of Candide Among the Bulgarians explained
Candide, expelled from the castle, wanders starving and cold until he is recruited by two men in blue who trick him into joining the Bulgarian army.
What happens
Candide, expelled from the castle, wanders starving and cold until he is recruited by two men in blue who trick him into joining the Bulgarian army. He is trained harshly, beaten for his ineptitude, and later attempts to desert, for which he is sentenced to run the gauntlet. After enduring two rounds of severe whipping, he is about to be shot when the King of the Bulgarians pardons him, and he is healed by a surgeon.
Themes in this chapter
Optimism vs. Pessimism
Candide clings to Pangloss's optimistic teachings even as he is deceived, beaten, and nearly executed, highlighting the absurdity of blind optimism in the face of cruelty.
Suffering and Human Cruelty
The chapter vividly depicts Candide's physical suffering—hunger, cold, beatings, and the gauntlet—as a result of arbitrary military discipline and deception.
Folly of Metaphysical Systems
Candide's metaphysical belief in free will is mocked when he is forced to choose between two brutal punishments, showing the irrelevance of abstract philosophy to real-world coercion.
Characters to notice
- Candide
Driven from the castle, he wanders destitute, is tricked into joining the Bulgarian army, brutally trained, and nearly executed before being pardoned.
- Cunégonde
Mentioned as the object of Candide's love; he weeps for her and the magnificent castle where she is imprisoned.
- Pangloss
Referenced by Candide as the teacher of his optimistic philosophy, which he still believes when recruited.
Key passages
“Candide, driven from terrestrial paradise, walked a long while without knowing where, weeping, raising his eyes to heaven, turning them often towards the most magnificent of castles which imprisoned the purest of noble young ladies.”
After being kicked out of the castle, Candide wandered aimlessly, crying and looking up to heaven, frequently glancing back at the grand castle that held the most innocent and noble young lady captive.
Establishes Candide's initial despair and his fixation on Cunégonde and the lost paradise of the castle.
“Instantly they fettered him, and carried him away to the regiment. There he was made to wheel about to the right, and to the left, to draw his rammer, to return his rammer, to present, to fire, to march, and they gave him thirty blows with a cudgel.”
They immediately chained him and took him to the regiment, where he was drilled in marching and musket handling, and beaten thirty times with a stick.
Highlights the deceptive recruitment and brutal training that Candide endures.
“He was asked which he would like the best, to be whipped six-and-thirty times through all the regiment, or to receive at once twelve balls of lead in his brain. He vainly said that human will is free, and that he chose neither the one nor the other.”
They gave him a choice: be whipped thirty-six times by the entire regiment or be shot in the head. He argued that free will meant he could choose neither, but his objection was ignored.
Satirizes the concept of free will when faced with coercive and violent ultimatums.