Simplicity in Candide and Siddhartha

Throughout the novel Candide, written by Voltaire, the professor Pangloss is a loyal companion to the title character. Whenever an unfortunate event occurs, no matter how deplorable or horrific, Pangloss counsels Candide and tells him they live in the “best of all possible worlds” and “all is for the best.” (Voltaire 20) Candide traverses on his journey and accepts this as truth. The title character of Siddhartha, in contrast, follows his own path and questions the counsel of elders and even the great Buddha himself. Nevertheless, at the conclusion of the journeys of both Siddhartha and Candide, their stories converge when simplicity is found to be key to both their philosophies of life.

The setting of Candide begins in Westphalia, a land described as an “earthly paradise” (Voltaire 22) and owned by the Baron Thunder-Ten-Tronckh. Candide is “blessed by nature with the most agreeable manners” (Voltaire 19) and lives in Westphalia until he is exiled after a sexual encounter found to be unpardonable with the baron’s daughter, Cunйgonde. In light of this event, Candide makes the statement:

There is no effect without a cause. All things are necessarily connected and arranged for the best. It was my fate to be driven from Lady Cunйgonde’s presence and made to run the gauntlet, and now I have to beg my bread until I can earn it. Things could not have happened otherwise. (Voltaire 26-27)

Another instance in which Candide displays his naпve and unadulterated nature takes place when he is treated derisively by a minister and his wife. The minister questions Candide as to whether or not he believes that the Pope is Antichrist, and when Candide does not answer in the manner found suitable by the minister’s wife, she begins degrading him and ultimately pours the contents of a chamber pot on his head. It is then that Candide is taken in by a non-Christian man, James, and treated well. Candide uses James’ actions as vindication for the others’ treatment of him, saying, “My tutor, Pangloss, was quite right when he told me that all is for the best in this world of ours, for your generosity moves me much more than the harshness of that gentleman in the black gown and his wife.” (Voltaire 27)

Candide makes his way around the world with the most ill-fated trials befalling him everywhere he goes, yet he still maintains his belief that he lives in the best of all possible worlds and all is for the best. It is only when Pangloss is hanged and no longer exists to explain the truth behind every tragedy to Candide that he begins to doubt that all is for the best. After being flogged and watching Pangloss victimized at an auto-da-fй, Candide states, “If this is the best of all possible worlds, what can the rest be like? Had it only been a matter of flogging, I should not have questioned it, for I have had that before from the Bulgars. But when it comes to my dear Pangloss being hanged-the greatest of philosophers-I must know the reason why…” (Voltaire 37) This is the beginning of a decline in Candide’s optimism and belief in Pangloss’ philosophy. Candide finally says, “Oh, Pangloss … I shall have to renounce that optimism of yours in the end.” (Voltaire 86)

In the conclusion of the novel, Candide and Pangloss, who reappears after being hanged, find themselves on a farm with a number of characters from the story. They meet a man who is well-off financially. He invites them into his home, where they find that he is a man who is not interested in politics or anything of the sort. Instead, he works on his farm with his children. “Work,” He says, “banishes those three great evils, boredom, vice, and poverty.” (Voltaire 142) After departing, Pangloss declares that the man they had met seems to be doing better than the dethroned kings they had met during the story. This man leads a life of simplicity, in which he works and lives; yet he is content and does not seem to desire more. Candide decides that they, too, must work in their garden, as he states it once, and then again for emphasis as the closing line of the novel. This is the end of his journey.

In the beginning of Siddhartha, written by Herman Hesse, the readers are introduced to the main character who shares his name with the title. At this time, Siddhartha is a young man and the son of a Brahmin. Throughout his childhood he is taught the words of the Rig-Veda and the ways of the Brahmin priests, and yet he still feels empty. A passage that conveys this is as follows:

Siddhartha had begun to feel the seeds of discontent within him. He had begun to feel that the love of his father and mother, and also the love of his friend Govinda, would not always make him happy, give him peace, satisfy and suffice him. He had begun to suspect that his worthy father and his other teachers, the wise Brahmins, had already passed on to him the bulk