Editing Candide (section)

=== Garden motif ===
Gardens are thought by many critics to play a critical symbolic role in ''Candide''. The first location commonly identified as a garden is the castle of the Baron, from which Candide and Cunégonde are evicted much in the same fashion as [[Adam and Eve]] are evicted from the [[Garden of Eden]] in the [[Book of Genesis]]. Cyclically, the main characters of ''Candide'' conclude the novel in a garden of their own making, one which might represent celestial paradise. The third most prominent "garden" is [[El Dorado]], which may be a false Eden.<ref>''Readings on Candide'' (2001), p. 92</ref> Other possibly symbolic gardens include the Jesuit pavilion, the garden of Pococurante, Cacambo's garden, and the Turk's garden.<ref name=bottiglia727>Bottiglia (1951), pp. 727, 731</ref>

These gardens are probably references to the Garden of Eden, but it has also been proposed, by Bottiglia, for example, that the gardens refer also to the ''[[Encyclopédie]]'', and that Candide's conclusion to cultivate "his garden" symbolises Voltaire's great support for this endeavour. Candide and his companions, as they find themselves at the end of the novella, are in a very similar position to Voltaire's tightly knit philosophical circle which supported the {{lang|fr|Encyclopédie}}: the main characters of ''Candide'' live in seclusion to "cultivate [their] garden", just as Voltaire suggested his colleagues leave society to write. In addition, there is evidence in the [[epistle|epistolary]] correspondence of Voltaire that he had elsewhere used the metaphor of gardening to describe writing the {{lang|fr|Encyclopédie}}.<ref name=bottiglia727/> Another interpretative possibility is that Candide cultivating "his garden" suggests his engaging in only necessary occupations, such as feeding oneself and fighting boredom. This is analogous to Voltaire's own view on gardening: he was himself a gardener at his estates in [[Les Délices]] and [[Ferney]], and he often wrote in his correspondence that gardening was an important pastime of his own, it being an extraordinarily effective way to keep busy.<ref>Davidson (2005), p. 55</ref><ref name=scherr>Scherr (1993)</ref><ref>Aldridge (1975), p. 258</ref>