A Happy Ending

Even though throughout Candide there are new characters in every chapter (making it hard to keep up with all of them and their experiences), they all come together for what I would say is the only actual happy part of the story (no sarcasm in it). I feel corny but I'll just spill the beans: The story's ending was comforting and happy.
 
I have to accept the story was not easy to understand, but the end has a nice morale, the world is full difficulties and people should work and toil to survive it. A maxim like this isn't forgotten, it appears even today children's fables like in The Ant and the Grasshopper. In this fragment of Aesop´s Fables the lazy grasshopper doesn't work during spring and then freezes and is hungry in winter, while the ant stores provisions for the winter, so he has enough food and shelter to endure this part of the year. In this case, the ant represents all the characters who have learned they have to work and how this will pay off. The satirical novel ends by clearly stating that you ought to work for what you want and most importantly, take nothing for granted. 

Crazy Obsession

First, Lady Cunégonde magically appears, and now her brother´s alive in Paraguay? I swear I won´t be surprised if their parents become brain-eating zombies and wake up from their tombs. I´ve given up with reading the italicized text under the chapter´s title, because a surprise like this is ruined in two sentences.I´m even startig to think the Baron´s family is stalking Candide. How is it that every time he crosses a whole ocean to reach another continent, he either meets one of the members of the family or recieves a supposed "love letter" from Lady Cunégonde? 

I do think Candide might be falling facefirst into some kind of obsession with Cunégonde, either he speaks too much about her (might be the reason why the abbé knows how to trick him and Martin into visiting her) or Martin is betraying him. A rage attack with your brother-in-law and then murdering him is taking it a bit too far when it comes to marriage ("Candide instantly drew his own [sword] and plundged it up to the hilt in the Baron´s stomach, but as he withdrew the dripping blade began to weep, and cried ´O God! What have I done! I have killed my old master, my friend, and my brother in law!´" (pg. 67)).  This is Candide´s impulsiveness alone, what if he were travelling alone? Martin, Cacambo, Pangloss, they´ve always been there to support and guide Candide. Cacambo always "kept his head" (pg. 67), but I doubt that Candide would have succesfully escaped after murdering Cunégonde´s brother. I´m almost done with the book but I think Candide is done for.

God vs. Philosophy

Unlike philosophy, which depends on the thinker, religion is always regulated by the same dogmas. Many people now find themselves being against religion because they see no sense in depending on a force they have no proof exists.

Never have religion and philosophy worked well together. Even in a satirical novel like Candide, there is clear despise between followers of both ways of education. Pangloss is hanged after he has a mild discussion with an officer of the Inquisition and tried to explain his point, just to be interrupted "when the officer nodded at his henchman" (pg. 35) and took Dr. Pangloss away. 

This makes me consider the Voltarian question "Why do bad things happen to good people?" After lamenting for his cruel fate, Candide thinks about Pangloss, Lady Cunégonde, and James the Anabaptist, all of them having suffered a cruel fate for all he knows. With no philosophical thoughts intended, many people are beginning to believe that if they oeuvre well, the worthiness of these actions will reflect upon them, as if they were lucky rnough for God to keep an eye on them.