Candide

The author used a variety of forms to oppose Optimism. The formula "best of all possible worlds" appears again and again only to be refuted with satiric and ironic sting. One of these forms involves a type of understatement. Candide is master of it — inadvertently so. Often, after experiencing terrible danger and suffering, his immediate reaction is that Doctor Pangloss might possibly — just possibly — begin to doubt his own philosophy. After hearing the old woman's story in all its horrible detail, he remarks: "It's a great pity that the wise Pangloss was hanged, contrary to custom, in an auto-da-fé: he would have told us admirable things about the physical and moral evils that cover the earth, and I would have felt strong enough to venture a few respectful objections." Recall also his immediate reaction when he learned that the Oreillons, believing him to be a Jesuit, intended to roast or boil him and then eat him: "All is well, I won't argue about it; but I must admit that it's a cruel fate to have lost Lady Cunégonde and then be roasted on a spit by the Oreillons." At the inn in a Spanish village, the old woman expressed her conviction that a Franciscan father had stolen Cunégonde's money and jewels. Candide remarked that he should have left them enough to finish their journey. There is ironic understatement also to be found in the account of Candide's losses at cards in Paris. The youth was puzzled because he never held any aces, but, wrote Voltaire, Martin was not surprised. It is often through just such laconic statements that the author achieves witty understatement.