The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“But, of all the names in the universe, he had the most unconquerable aversion for TRISTRAM.”

As the narrator, Tristram takes great pains to convey his bad fortune. Life has conspired against him, he insists, and one example is the fact that his father gave him the name he found most contemptible. This is Tristram’s fate, to be caught up in the absurdity of his family members. To explain his bad fortune, he must explain his father. To explain his father, he must explain the unlikely circumstances that engendered Walter with this theory of nominative determinism. Tristram’s bad luck is such that his life story demands constant digressions so that he can never truly tell his story without telling everything else.

“The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.”

Telling the story of a wound is a way to distract a wounded soldier from the pain. Toby is forced to retell the story of his injury so many times that he is driven into the obsessive construction of a scale model of the battlefield. Tristram suffers the same fate, in that he attempts to tell the story of his injuries (physical and emotional), so he must construct a scale model of his life in the form of a book. Tristram is trying to alleviate the pain of his existence by telling the story of his injury but, like Toby, he is forced to make constant revisions and refinements as his obsession deepens.

“The more my uncle Toby pored over his map, the more he took a liking to it.”

As Toby becomes increasingly obsessed with the granular detail of his map, the narrator becomes increasingly obsessed with the granular detail of his life. Tristram feels the need to explain everything, and narrating a novel is the simplest way in which he can convey the complexity of his life to his audience. The more he narrates, however, the more he enjoys telling the story, creating an endless spiral of complexity.

“WRITING, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.”

Through his narration, Tristram reveals his intended relationship with his audience. Rather than a simple narrative, he views himself as being in conversation with the audience, at least when his narration is properly managed. The conversational element is important, as his digressions and asides are illustrative of the structure of a conversation more than a traditional story. Tristram’s stylistic flourishes are deliberately exaggerated, an ironic attempt to capture the reality of conversation in a deliberately overly literate style.

“I’ll not hurt thee, says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going a-cross the room, with the fly in his hand,—I’ll not hurt a hair of thy head:—Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape;—go poor Devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?—This world is surely wide enough to hold both thee and me.”

Toby’s mercy toward the fly epitomizes his good-heartedness as well as the theme of sympathy and benevolence. Although the fly is a nuisance, Toby does not become angry or violent with it; rather, he identifies with it as a fellow creature. Toby extends this compassion to every living thing he encounters. Tristram says that he learned all his good qualities from his uncle, and his sympathy toward his characters throughout his narrative resembles Toby’s.

“You will no more be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motly emblem of my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unravel the many opinions, transactions, and truths which still lie mystically hid under the dark veil of the black one.”

The narration pauses as Tristram presents the reader with two marbled pages, which would have been unique in every printed copy in the 18th century. The reader supposedly cannot penetrate the moral of these marbled pages, as Tristram has no control over how the marbling will appear. Each marbled page was unique, so each reader would be forced to come to a different conclusion. The marbled pages invite the reader to reflect and then reflect on their own reflection.

“For he says there never was a great or heroic action performed since the world began by one called Tristram.”

Tristram’s humor is self-effacing. He goes to great lengths to demonstrate how little his own father thought of his name. By Volume 4, however, with the success of Tristram Shandy already demonstrable, Tristram’s narration becomes a great deed that his father could not predict. Tristram ironically presents his father’s prediction of his failure inside an autobiography that is supposedly his great accomplishment.

“My father delighted in subtleties of this kind, and listen’d with infinite attention.”

Following the debacle of Tristram’s christening, Walter is invited to a meeting of priests who will debate whether his son can be re-christened. During the debate, however. Walter becomes more fascinated with the debate itself rather than the outcome. The priests venture on constant digressions and debates, much to Walter’s delight. He does not care about his son or his son’s name; instead, he is as raptured as ever with the abstract ideal of debate itself.

“True Shandeism, think what you will against it, opens the heart and lungs.”

Tristram becomes a great advocate for his family’s philosophy. This philosophy is referred to as Shandeism, which Tristram defines as being able to open the hearts and lungs of its adherents. This stands in contrast to the sickly, argumentative, and close-minded members of the Shandy family whom Tristram describes, but his evangelism is the point. Shandeism, as a philosophy, is self-aggrandizing for the sake of self-aggrandizement.

“Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?”

In an ironic introduction to Volume 5, Tristram complains about the tendency of writers to plagiarize the works of others. Throughout the entire novel, Tristram borrows at length from other writers without crediting them. Furthermore, this metaphor is, itself, plagiarized in part from Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. This self-aware invective against plagiarism not only demonstrates Tristram’s wry sense of humor but also points to the way people, like books, are the product of their experiences and influences. No person or book comes into existence without external influence.

“That, in order to render the Tristrapaedia complete,—I wrote the chapter myself.”

The Tristra-paedia is a child-rearing guide written by Walter. When Walter references the text, however, Tristram hints that he may have been the person who wrote this piece of the book himself. In doing so, he creates a loop of reliability in which nothing can be trusted, as everything is at the mercy of Tristram’s editorial intervention. The reader cannot trust anything to be true in the story, as Tristram might well have altered anything in his pursuit of meaningful entertainment.

“My father was never at a loss what to say to any man, upon any subject.”

Walter’s main hobbyhorses are academic expertise and intellectual debate. Whatever the subject, Walter is keen to keep himself informed of every possible argument in every direction. He is never at a loss for what to say because, even concerning subjects he knows nothing about, he has read enough to believe himself an expert. Like Tristram and other members of the Shandy family, Walter specializes in digressions. Any subject is fit for remark from Walter, as he may not even contribute something relevant.

“I AM so impatient to return to my own story.”

Tristram appeals to the audience’s sympathies by acknowledging his tendency to get distracted. In a novel that took three volumes for the protagonist to even be born, Tristram complains that he is being distracted from his own work. He is the narrator, with total agency over the story, so he has only himself to blame. Yet his appeals suggest that he is working at the behest of some greater demand, that he has no choice but to go on these constant digressions because everything—every single subjective experience and perspective—is essential. Tristram’s impatience bolsters the stylistic choices of his own narration.

“Sit down, Sir, paint her to your own mind.”

Rather than describe the Widow Wadman, Tristram invites the reader to imagine her. He provides two blank pages in which the reader can sketch their own interpretation of Widow Wadman, surrendering narrative agency by allowing the reader to imagine an important character however they please. This inventive approach to characterization invites the reader to reflect on their own role in the narration and how their imagination can affect the story that is being told. A story, Tristram suggests, is a collaborative effort of both writer and reader.

“It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked the meaning of a thing she did not understand.”

Walter delights in being able to debate any topic at any time. In this sense, Elizabeth is his worst enemy. She knows her husband so well that she knows how to handle his intellectual impulses. By simply agreeing with him, she denies him the opportunity to debate. This infuriates Walter, who has no way of dealing with someone who agrees with him.

“DEATH himself knocked at my door.”

In Volume 7, Tristram is prompted to accelerate the chronology of the narrative by several decades. He fears death, he claims, and he comes to imagine death as a personified presence in his life. The specter of Death haunts Tristram, chasing him across the continent. In a novel in which the protagonist took so long to be born, he may die before he has achieved any of his stated goals. By turning death into a character in his narrative, Tristram hints at how the novel has consumed his life.

“I have no debt but the debt of NATURE.”

Tristram argues with the French locals, insisting that he has no debt but the debt of nature. He is roundly ignored. In one of the few interactions between Tristram and common people, his eloquence and his soaring rhetoric are roundly ignored. As the narrator, the reader follows along with Tristram’s style. In the real world, such declarations achieve nothing.

“There is nothing more pleasing to a traveller—or more terrible to travel-writers, than a large rich plain.”

Tristram travels through the expansive French countryside and notes the vast empty plains. These plains are pleasing to him in an aesthetic sense but horrifying with regard to his ambitions as a travel writer. The empty plains lead to empty pages, as they provide nothing of interest to his audience. Tristram tires of the travelogue after just one volume, as the richness of his memory is more comforting than the threat of beautiful but empty plains.

“That of all the several ways of beginning a book which is now in practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is the best.”

Tristram is nothing if not self-assured. He is aware that his style is not traditional, even in the as-yet-undefined world of novel writing. Nevertheless, he insists that his unconventional approach is the only possible way in which to tell the story. In this way, the style of the narrative and the character of Tristram are blended. The structure and style of the novel are inseparable from the idiosyncrasies of Tristram himself, using narrative techniques to craft a character who is largely absent from the actual events of the novel.

“To tell thee truly, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, any other date would have pleased me much better.”

As Trim begins to tell a story, Toby interjects. He tries to refine and explain the story, even as it is being told. These frequent interjections demonstrate that Tristram is not alone in his family. Rather, every male member of the Shandy household tends to interject and digress at every possible opportunity. Tristram has inherited these traits from his older relatives.

“For my hobby-horse, if you recollect a little, is no way a vicious beast.”

Tristram’s hobbyhorse is the novel itself. Like Toby, he is recreating the events of his past in an increasingly meticulous and obsessive fashion. To better understand how he came to his current predicament, Tristram turns his past into his obsession. His past, his hobbyhorse, is not a vicious beast, Tristram says, but it has completely taken over his life.

“The story went on—and on—it had episodes in it—it came back, and went on and on again; there was no end of it the reader found it very long.”

As Toby and Trim make their way to Widow Wadman’s home, Trim stops to tell a story. Both men are nervous, as they are just about to declare their love for Widow Wadman and Bridget, respectively. During this story, they interrupt one another and go on constant digressions. In this sense, the story becomes an analogy for the novel itself. There seems to be no end to Tristram’s story, as he has reset the chronology of the narrative to a point before his birth. Like the two men, Tristram is nervous about how to proceed and end the novel.

“All I wish is, that it may be a lesson to the world, ‘to let people tell their stories their own way.’”

After nine volumes, Tristram reaches something close to a personal ethos. He wants people to have the right to tell their stories in whatever way they please. This is particularly ironic given that for a reader to reach this point in the novel, they must already have indulged Tristram’s many whims. In this way, the novel becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, in which Tristram uses his unique narrative style to justify the need for unique narrative styles.