Voltaire's preoccupations with evil and with various kinds of human folly and intolerance found a perfect vehicle in the philosophical tale. He combined often wildly entertaining action with profoundly serious sense.The novella begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism (or simply optimism) by his tutor, Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this existence, followed by Candide's slow, painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world.