50 pages • 1 hour read
VoltaireZadig
Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 1747A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Zadig
The protagonist Zadig is a smart, rich, moral young man who at the beginning of the novella feels assured of his future happiness. As a staunch rationalist, Zadig is not afraid to oppose the irrationality he sees in tradition and superstition, making himself a target for conservatives and fanatics. His intelligence both gets him into trouble and gets him out of it, but it does not make him happy. His mistaken belief that he can use his intelligence to control his emotions leads him to become a victim of them as he suffers a string of misfortunes.
Zadig is at turns naïve and cunning. He fails to anticipate the predictable consequences of his attempts at reform and remains oblivious to the role he plays in his fate. Yet, he is also a kind of trickster, using his cunning to expose people’s illusions and orchestrate events in his favor. Similarly, Zadig is at once selfless in his official duties as grand vizier of Babylon and self-centered in his outlook, aggrieved by his misfortune. These contradictions complicate his personality, lending it psychological realism.
While a Zoroastrian, Zadig opposes most theology and philosophy, considering them overcomplicated and fatuous. The Zoroastrian precepts he adheres to are commonsensical, reflecting his belief in the supreme value of simplicity. He is driven to understand the rules of fate so that he can secure his happiness. His trials and tribulations transform him, dispelling his belief that God determines fate. Through his transformation, he becomes happy and spreads happiness through his just rule.
Queen Astarte
Astarte is the queen of Babylon, married to King Moabdar. More perceptive than her husband, she recognizes that the piece of paper the king’s parrot drops in his lap is the missing piece of Zadig’s verse and by doing so saves Zadig. She comes to love Zadig for his youth and intelligence. In her innocence, she does not try to conceal her love for him, resulting in the king discovering it. Forced to go into hiding, Astarte suffers a string of misfortune that is exacerbated by her beauty as she is enslaved and sold between harems. This fate forces her to realize that the nobility she thought was intrinsic to her was no more than her social station.
Astarte is brave—leading a faction in Babylon’s civil war—and resilient in enduring her misfortune. She is driven primarily by her love for Zadig, with whom she longs to reunite. She is esteemed in Babylon, where the people rejoice at her return, but also relegated to a passive position as merely the king’s wife. She nonetheless does as much as she can to ensure that Zadig wins the tournament to determine who her next husband will be.
King Moabdar
Moabdar is the king of Babylon, respected as a just ruler. Unlike many others in Babylon, Moabdar sees the virtue in Zadig’s actions and rewards him accordingly with the first prize in the contest of generosity and with the position of grand vizier. He trusts Zadig, making him his favorite courtier, but he plots to murder his confidante after discovering that he and Astarte love each other. This fatal flaw of jealousy causes his fall from grace. He marries the Egyptian Missouf, who helps destroy his reputation, and eventually goes mad when his wife curses him in the Temple of Ormuzd. This madness—interpreted by Babylonians as divine punishment—leaves him vulnerable and he is killed when the Prince of Hyrcania invades the city.
The Hermit/Angel Jesrad
Zadig encounters a hermit carrying the Book of Destinies, written in an indecipherable language. The hermit is an old man with a long beard who through his actions and speeches teaches Zadig about justice and existence. As the archetypal sage, the hermit is the only person in the book to whom Zadig is a student. His lessons on justice become increasingly horrifying, culminating in him murdering a teenager to prevent the murders he would commit. He transforms, revealing himself as Jesrad, an angel of God. He explains that the world is the way it is because God determines it to be so and is dismissive of Zadig’s objections. The anti-enlightenment he provides Zadig—which leaves Zadig just as ignorant of the divine reasons behind things as he was before—spurs Zadig to reinvest himself in the world, finally realizing that people, rather than God, play a primary role in influencing fate.
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By Voltaire
