Candide

Candide, a sheltered young man raised in a German baron's castle, has been taught by his tutor Pangloss that this is the best of all possible worlds. When he is thrown out for kissing the baron's daughter Cunegonde, the lesson meets the test of reality. Candide is conscripted, flogged, caught in war and earthquake, and chased across Europe and South America, losing and finding companions along the way, including the relentlessly cheerful Pangloss and the clear-eyed old woman. Voltaire uses the breakneck journey to take aim at organized religion, war, slavery, aristocracy, and the philosophy that insists suffering is part of a perfect plan, ending on a quiet note about tending one's own garden.