Loyalty In Voltaire's Candide

Candide as a word means honest, but can also mean white or pure. The name itself gives quite a lot of insight as to the personality of Candide. In the early passages, Candide is depicted as very naïve and unable to think for himself, but compassionate and loyal.
Candide’s naivety is very well described in the first chapters. He is instructed by Pangloss, who he innocently believes to be “the greatest philosopher of….. the whole world.” He accepts Pangloss’s optimistic teachings as truth beyond question. After he is taken by the Bulgarians, he strays from their camp without understanding that he is not allowed to do so. Believing that all men have the free will to do as they please, he simply assumes that he is allowed to take a walk if he chooses to. Here we see that he is too naïve to understand that the philosophy of free will often does not apply to the real world. …show more content…
After he is kicked out of his home, he maintains Pangloss’s belief saying “I see plainly that all is for the best.” After witnessing the unspeakable atrocities of war, he still insists upon his master’s philosophy saying “the whole is necessarily concatenated and arranged for the best….. all this cannot be otherwise.” Then, an orator, supposedly a charitable man, refuses Candide bread while the orator’s wife empties the contents of a chamber pot on Candide’s head. Even still he says “Master Pangloss has well said that all is for the best in this