Candide

The tragedies sustained by each of the main characters could logically lead to an attitude of self-pity and resignation to the inevitability of misfortune. But the Old Woman, despite her own hardships, is the one character to renounce this attitude, instead challenging Miss Cunégonde and Candide to find someone who does not consider himself "the most wretched of mortals." Candide is in some respects a cautionary tale against the excesses of pity and the moral paralysis that it engenders, as many of its characters appear to languish in a world where adversity is an intractable rather than mutable condition.