Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Tristram Shandy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Truth, Fiction, and Storytelling
Language and Comprehension
Travel, Space, and Time
Sexuality and Propriety
Science, Technology, and the Enlightenment
Summary
Analysis
Chapter 11. The parson was named Yorick, Tristram explains, a family name allegedly going back 900 years. Tristram is greatly impressed by this, lamenting the “chops and changes” to which so many good surnames are subjected to over time. Yorick’s family was Danish originally, and an ancestor held a great but unknown post in the Danish court. Tristram speculates that the post was that of chief jester, and that therefore Yorick’s ancestor was none other than the Yorick in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Tristram recounts his own travels to Denmark, which he found to be an unremarkable but pleasant country populated by pleasant, stable people. Britain, on the other hand, is an unpredictable place, with the erratic weather producing equally strange temperaments in its residents.
Much like his borrowings from Cervantes, Tristram’s references to Shakespeare are unhindered by any sense of loyalty to the source material. Hamlet, which is based on Scandinavian legends dating back as far as the fifth century, is of course not a true story, and his invocation of Shakespeare’s Yorick is more aimed at characterizing Yorick the parson and his melancholy nature than making any actual historical connection. Tristram’s cultural observations are the first of many allusions to the fickle and often bizarre nature of his fellow Britons, foreshadowing the mock-travelogue of Volume VII.
Themes
Tristram finds Yorick’s character much more in keeping with the English than the Danish, and he wonders if over 900 years all the Danish blood ran out. Yorick is unworldly. He’s particularly opposed to seriousness, which he finds affected and self-righteous, preferring French wit. Yorick’s unworldliness, Tristram suggests, is due to his honesty, an honorable quality which nevertheless leads Yorick to commit numerous indiscretions.
As Tristram continues to poke fun at the English, Danish, and French, he also implicitly mocks the prevailing theories of national character: is Yorick’s disposition caused by weather, blood, or something else? To Tristram this is not a question to resolve scientifically, but rather an opportunity to play around with various theories and ways of expressing them.
Themes
Chapter 12. Tristram compares the joker and the subject of a joke to a debtor and a creditor, arguing that jokers laugh at others’ expense but quickly forget about their jokes, while those made fun of will remember the mockery and the “debt” they are owed. Yorick owes many such debts, as he ignores the good counsel of Eugenius and often offends others with his jokes. In fact, Yorick makes many enemies through humor. Though there is no malice behind Yorick’s jokes, the average fool takes offense regardless. Tristram finds this to be a widespread problem in human life, and he gravely predicts that those whom Yorick has mocked will have their revenge on him.
Tristram continues to use Yorick’s strange character as a springboard to launch into musings on human nature. Having strayed far from the subject of the midwife and the story of his own birth, Tristram disorients the reader in space and time, refusing to give any real clues as to where this part of Yorick’s life fits into Tristram’s own story. Tristram also leans into the metaphorical language, refraining from divulging the kinds of jokes Yorick has made, the people Yorick has mocked, and just what kind of revenge Yorick’s enemies have in mind.
Themes
Describing this revenge as if he is narrating a battle, Tristram describes how Yorick’s enemies struck him down. Despite his gallant behavior, Yorick died brokenhearted. Later, Eugenius visits Yorick at his deathbed. He is unable to accept Yorick’s impending death and suggests the power of God may yet heal him and revive Yorick’s career. Yorick denies this assertion and quotes Don Quixote to rage against his enemies, speaking his last words. He then passes away and is buried with a simple gravestone reading “Alas, poor YORICK!” (The following two pages of the book are entirely blacked out.)
Tristram leans even more into vague, metaphorical language, describing Yorick’s demise as if it were a Shakespearean battle scene. It is hard to imagine that Yorick, a country parson, died in combat. Indeed, Yorick’s peaceful death in bed suggests this is not the case. While the most likely interpretation is that Yorick’s penchant for mockery cost him his career (which later depictions of Yorick and his fellow priests would support), Tristram avoids clarifying this. Instead, he returns to Shakespeare: Hamlet’s fateful words are carved into Yorick’s tombstone, a darkly ironic nod to their alleged family connection. The blacked out pages are the first of several visual elements which, like Tristram’s dedications, disrupt the flow of the narrative and stress to the reader both the presence of an author and the physicality of the book in their hands.
Themes
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Chapter 13. Tristram notes that it is time to return to the original subject: the midwife. Recounting her importance to the neighborhood, Tristram explains once more the radius in which the midwife operates, which he promises will be visualized by a map included in the twentieth volume of his book. He promises this volume will not be added simply to bulk up the book but will contain essential commentary to illuminate certain parts of the previous volumes.
Finally returning to the midwife (again), Tristram ironically promises even more superfluous detail in the volumes to come. His farcical insistence that he will only include essential information prompts a very real question: what is “essential” in a work of fiction?
Themes
Chapter 14. Tristram turns to Tristram’s mother’s marriage contract to continue the story of his birth. As he struggles to find a particular article in the contract, he feels compelled to justify his digressions. He argues that no matter what kind of story is being told, whether a history or a novel, the author is compelled to deviate from the straight line of the narrative to recount anecdotes, weave in related stories, address the history of characters and places, and so on. Tristram points to the difficulty he is having narrating his own birth as proof of this theory.
Tristram continues to play with the flow of time in his narrative, as he claims to be reading his parents’ marriage contract as he writes this chapter. He then defends his digressive storytelling method by asking how a story can be told without including seemingly superfluous details, as he had earlier alluded to.
Themes
Chapter 15. Tristram finds the article in his mother’s marriage contract and quotes it exactly. The article, written in a long-winded legal style, details the circumstances of childbirth in the future marriage between Tristram’s parents, Walter Shandy and Elizabeth Mollineux. Tristram’s parents agree to move to their country estate, Shandy-Hall, once Tristram’s father has retired from business, despite Tristram’s mother’s preference for living in London. Money will be set aside for Tristram’s mother, however, to hire a carriage in order to give birth in London. An additional article inserted by Tristram’s father clarifies that if Tristram’s mother falsely invokes the clause above and travels to London too early to give birth, she will forfeit her right and will have to give birth at Shandy-Hall. Tristram’s mother did indeed invoke this clause too early, traveling to London in September 1717, thereby dooming Tristram to have his nose squeezed flat.
Written in mock legal language, this chapter recalls Tristram’s questioning of the law as but another hobby-horse, one way of thinking among many. The contract’s incredibly detailed articles and belabored reasoning offers a highly ironic picture of legal language and its ability to complicate simple questions. The arbitrary, almost nonsensical nature of this contract does not prevent it from having real consequences, however, as Tristram alludes to the future tragedy of his nose and suggests that the chain of cause and effect began in this very document. Mrs. Shandy’s false invocation of the clause may refer to a miscarriage.
Themes
