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Zadig
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Symbols & Motifs
Serpents
Serpents appear twice in Zadig. Before Zadig realizes he is in love with Astarte, he has an ominous dream that foreshadows their dangerous love and Moabdar’s plot to kill him. Zadig dreams that “he was lying softly on a bed of roses, from which a serpent issued and stung him to the heart with its sharp and venomous fang” (81). The dream is rich in symbolism. At first, Zadig is in a comfortable, relaxing bed, a bed of roses, connoting love. Suddenly, a serpent emerges from the roses and sinks its venom into his heart. That the serpent emerges from the bed, the site of love, and poisons his heart, a symbol of both love and emotion, portends that love will lead to great emotional pain. Of course, this premonition plays out in the story in Moabdar’s plan to murder Zadig and the latter’s subsequent pain at being separated from Astarte.
Ogul’s physician prescribes a remedy of cockatrice cooked in rose water to cure a malady caused by Ogul’s extreme gluttony. To Ogul, the rarity of the mythical beast endows it with magical healing properties. Instead of addressing the cause of his malady by eating less, Ogul demands an exotic cure that will enable him to continue eating. After the slaves fail to find a cockatrice, Zadig tricks Ogul into exercising and moderating his diet. Zadig demonstrates that commonsense cures are more effective than magical remedies. The cockatrice symbolizes the superstitions people use to buttress their lifestyle or identity at the expense of ignoring the harm caused by the superstition.
The Pyre of Widowhood
The Pyre of Widowhood is the festival in which widows throw themselves on their husband’s funeral pyre. The festival symbolizes the power of tradition to override commonsense and infect a group of people with the will to do something contrary to their interests. This tradition perverts the Arabian tribes’ morals to the extent that they base a tribe’s respectability on the number of its widows who have self-immolated. Zadig points out to Setoc that their metric for respectability does not include the actual health of the tribe. So, while a tribe may gain respect for having a lot of Pyres of Widowhood, it will lose productive members, hurting its overall health. Though Setoc refuses to publicly condemn the tradition, he recognizes its absurdity in his sarcastic remark to Zadig: “For more than a thousand years women have had the right to burn themselves. Which of us shall dare to alter a law which time has consecrated? Is there anything more respectable than an ancient abuse?” (110). In this phrasing, Voltaire captures the absurdity of the cruelty and counterproductivity at the heart of the Pyre of Widowhood.
The Color Green
Throughout the novella, green symbolizes jealousy. In the classical myth of Cupid and Psyche, Cupid transforms into a monster with green eyes and abducts Psyche after discovering Psyche has betrayed him for Hercules. In Zadig, Arimazes’s nickname of Green Eyes both describes and determines his jealousies. Green Eyes personifies the vindictive jealousy Zadig inspires in others that results in much of his misfortune. Though Zadig does nothing to harm Green Eyes, the latter is jealous enough of him to orchestrate his execution. In this way, the flat character of Green Eyes personifies the destruction jealousy wreaks, illustrating the role it plays in determining people’s fates.
In the tournament, the foolish nobleman Itobad wears green and gold armor. While the gold symbolizes his vanity, the green foreshadows both the jealousy he will feel for Zadig’s success and his theft of Zadig’s armor. With nothing else to wear, Zadig is forced to present himself in the arena in Itobad’s armor—indicating to the crowd a jealous character. This mischaracterization pains Zadig and reveals the importance of clothing in reflecting one’s character. The first thing Zadig does when he finally defeats Itobad is strip him of his stolen armor, reclaiming his identity.
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