Zadig; or, The Book of Fate (French: Zadig ou la Destinée; 1747) is a novella and work of philosophical fiction by the Enlightenment writer Voltaire. It tells the story of Zadig, a Zoroastrian philosopher in ancient Babylonia. The story of Zadig is a fictional story. Voltaire does not attempt any historical accuracy. The singular narrative and unique journey of Zadig still stands as a philosophical reference to “nothing is either good or bad without the comparison of one with the other.”
It was originally published as Memnon in Amsterdam (with a false imprint of London given) and first issued under its more familiar title in 1748.
The book makes use of the Persian tale The Three Princes of Serendip. It is philosophical in nature, and presents human life as in the hands of a destiny beyond human control. Voltaire challenges religious and metaphysical orthodoxy with his presentation of the moral revolution taking place in Zadig himself. Zadig is one of Voltaire's most celebrated works after Candide. Many literary critics have praised Voltaire's use of contradiction and juxtaposition.
The protagonist's name is derived from the Hebrew and Arabic terms tzadik and seddik, a title bestowed on a particularly righteous person – though Voltaire's character is not presented as a Jew and does not exactly fit the criteria set in Jewish tradition for use of the term. This combined with the geographic setting of Babylon indicates he is likely of Arabian descent.
Contents
Characters
Zadig – The protagonist, a Babylonian philosopher.
Sémire – Zadig's original love interest.
Orcan – Zadig's rival for Sémire and nephew of a certain Minister of State.
Azora – Zadig's second love interest.
Cador – Zadig's confident and faithful friend.
Moabdar – The King of Babylon.
Astarté – Queen of Babylon, Zadig's final love interest.
Sétoc – An Egyptian merchant and Zadig's master while he is enslaved.
Almona – A widow.
Arbogad – A brigand.
Jesrad – An angel who disguises himself as a retired philosopher and hermit
Plot summary
Zadig, a good-hearted, handsome young man from Babylonia, is in love with Sémire and they are to marry. Sémire, however, has another suitor: Orcan, who wants her for himself. Zadig tries to defend his love from Orcan's threat, but his eye is injured in the process. Sémire abhors this injury, causing her to depart with his enemy. Shortly after, Zadig makes a full recovery and falls into the arms of another woman, Azora, whom he marries, but who promptly betrays him.
Disillusioned with women, Zadig turns to science, but his knowledge lands him in prison, the first of several injustices to befall him. Indeed, the conte derives its pace and rhythm from the protagonist's ever-changing fortunes which see him rise to great heights and fall to great lows. Upon his release from prison, Zadig rises in favour with the king and queen of Babylonia and is eventually appointed prime minister; in this role, he proves himself to be a very honest man, looked upon favourably by the king, as he passes fair judgements on his citizens unlike the other ministers who base their judgements on the people's wealth. He is forced to flee the kingdom, though, when his relationship with King Moabdar is compromised: Zadig's reciprocated love for queen Astarté is discovered and he worries that the king's desire for revenge might drive him to kill the queen.
Having reached Egypt, Zadig kills an Egyptian man while valiantly saving a woman from his attack on her. Under the law of the land, this crime means that he must become a slave. His new master, Sétoc, is soon impressed by Zadig's wisdom and they become friends. In one incident, Zadig manages to reverse an ancient custom of certain tribes in which women felt obliged to burn themselves alive with their husbands on the death of the latter. After attempting to resolve other religious disputes, Zadig enrages local clerics who attempt to have him killed. Fortunately for him, though, a woman that he saved (Almona) from being burned intervenes so that he avoids death. Almona marries Sétoc, who in turn gives Zadig his freedom and then he begins his journey back to Babylonia in order to discover what has become of Astarté. (In some versions there is a further episode in which he visits Serendib and advises the king on the choice of a treasurer and a wife.)
En route, he is taken captive by a group of Arabs, from whom he learns that king Moabdar has been killed, but he does not learn anything of what has become of Astarté. Arbogad, the leader of the group of Arabs, sets him free and he heads for Babylonia once more, equipped with the knowledge that a rebellion has taken place to oust the king. On this journey he meets an unhappy fisherman who is about to commit suicide as he has no money, but Zadig gives him some money to ease his woes, telling us that source of his own unhappiness is in his heart, whereas the fisherman's are only financial concerns. Zadig prevents him from committing suicide and he continues on his way.
Influence
The detective work portrayed in Zadig was influential. Marquis de Sade refers directly to Voltaire's work in the first pages of Justine ou les Malheurs de la vertu, 1791. Georges Cuvier wrote, in 1834, in the context of the new science of paleontology:
"Today, anyone who sees only the print of a cloven hoof might conclude that the animal that had left it behind was a ruminator, and this conclusion is as certain as any in physics and in ethics. This footprint alone, then, provides the observer with information about the teeth, the jawbone, the vertebrae, each leg bone, the thighs, shoulders and pelvis of the animal which had just passed: it is a more certain proof than all Zadig's tracks."
T. H. Huxley, the proponent of Darwin's theories of evolution, also found Zadig's approach instructive, and wrote in his 1880 article "On the Method of Zadig":
"What, in fact, lay at the foundation of all Zadig's arguments, but the coarse, commonplace assumption, upon which every act of our daily lives is based, that we may conclude from an effect to the pre-existence of a cause competent to produce that effect?"
Edgar Allan Poe may have been inspired by Zadig when he created C. Auguste Dupin in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", which Poe called a "tale of ratiocination" and which established the modern detective fiction genre. Émile Gaboriau and Arthur Conan Doyle were perhaps also influenced by Zadig. As Barzun and Taylor put it in A Catalogue of Crime: "However implausible and 'agrarian' his method, he is the first systematic detective in modern literature, and that priority itself adds to his troubles in the story until his royal vindication."
The text also influenced the Icelandic romance-saga Fimmbræðra saga, whose author, Jón Oddsson Hjaltalín, also adapted Zadig itself into Icelandic.