Sentimentality
Throughout A Sentimental Journey, the author, Laurence Sterne, seems to satirize sentimentality by showing his characters emoting melodramatically over silly things. Both Yorick (the narrator) and the characters he meets frequently indulge in inappropriate, disproportionate emotional responses. Early in the novel, Yorick sees an abandoned one-person carriage called a Desobligeant in the coach-yard of the hotel-master Monsieur Dessein. Imagining a whole adventurous history for the carriage, Yorick works himself into an intense sympathy…
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Travel
In A Sentimental Journey, several characters argue that travel—specifically, encounters with foreigners—can improve people morally by helping them to meet, understand, and love those different from themselves. The book’s narrator, the Englishman Yorick, improves this way during his travels in France. Yorick begins his travels in France by behaving rudely to someone unlike himself. When a Franciscan monk begs Yorick for alms, Yorick not only refuses to give him anything but criticizes his…
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Sexuality and Kindness
Yorick, the narrator of A Sentimental Journey, at one point argues that “nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece”—in other words, kindness often contains mixed motives involving romance and sex, which we cannot remove without damaging our instinct to be kind. The novel largely supports Yorick’s argument—but it also suggests that sexual attraction can lead to unkindness in the form…
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National vs. Personal Identity
In A Sentimental Journey, national identity is rigid while personal identity is fluid, a contrast that cautions against applying stereotypes to individuals. During his travels through France, the narrator Yorick is constantly looking out for and commenting on examples of French national character. He notes the particular phrases that French people use most often, criticizes the way French men flirt, and comments on French beggars’ “urbanity.” In one long passage, he criticizes French politeness…
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Religion
A Sentimental Journey associates religion with hypocrisy and sexual repression, yet some characters’ religious sentiments motivate them to admirable behavior. Thus, the novel suggests that religion can be either a negative or positive force, depending on the motives of the people practicing it. In a characteristic episode satirizing organized religion, the narrator Yorick persuades the aging Frenchwoman Madame de V***, who claims she “believe[s] nothing,” to renounce her nihilism. He persuades her not by talking…
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