Westphalia, Germany - Candide

In Candide by Voltaire, Candide's first home was in his uncle, the Baron's castle. This "Magnificent Castle" is in Westphalia. Throughout the novel, this is the only home that Candide knows (until the end) and compares other locations to this ideal. This is the location in which the story's events begin. Cunegonde, Candide's beloved, makes advances and when they are caught he is thrown out. His love for her, which is tied to their childhood home, is probably why he thinks of Westphalia as the ideal. It is also where he learns from his professor, Pangloss, "that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for all being created for an end, all is necessarily for the best end." This becomes the ironic philosophy of the novel.