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Pangloss is a character in Voltaire's novel Candide. He tutors Candide while they are living in the German village of Thunder-ten-Tronckh, and later joins Candide in some of his misadventures. Like most characters in Candide, Pangloss is a "flat character": he has only a few personality traits that do not evolve much throughout the story.
Pangloss is a follower of — some argue a caricature or outright satire of — the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, who theorized that the world we live in is the best of all possible worlds. Consequently, Pangloss constantly argues that "there is no effect without a cause" — in other words, everything in existence, from the human nose to natural disasters, is meant to suit a specific purpose [1] (http://www.studyworld.com/newsite/ReportEssay/literature/Novel%5CVoltaires_Candide-381452.htm).
However, this worldview causes Pangloss to not only remain optimistic in the face of incredible tragedy, but leads him to justify it. For instance, while Candide, Pangloss and Candide's friend Jacques are sailing to Lisbon, a storm hits and Jacques is washed overboard. Pangloss stops Candide from saving Jacques, claiming that "the bay of Lisbon had been formed expressly for [Jacques] to drown in" [2] (http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/candide/canalysis.html).
Even though Pangloss himself suffers a series of misfortunes — including a botched execution attempt by the Inquisition and being enslaved on a Turkish galley — he doesn't adopt a more realistic outlook by the end of the novel.
Panglossianism The term "Panglossianism" describes baseless optimism of the sort exemplified by Pangloss's beliefs, which are the opposite of his fellow traveller Martin's pessimism and emphasis on free will. The phrase "Panglossian pessimism" has been used to describe the pessimistic position that, since this is the best of all possible worlds, it is impossible for anything to get any better.
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