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 16. Tristram’s father retrieves Tristram’s mother from London and travels back to the country. Tristram’s father is particularly annoyed at having had to travel to London in September because it means he’ll miss the harvest of his fruit trees. Tristram’s father spends the journey scolding his wife, expressing his concern over the loss of a much-awaited second son. Tristram sympathizes with his mother, noting his father’s ability to wear down even the most patient of fellow travelers.
Jumping back into the narrative, it is unclear when and where the events depicted are happening. Tristram continues to characterize his parents, describing to the reader his father’s concern for his country estate (Shandy-Hall) and his aggressive and overbearing nature. Tristram reveals less about his mother, who will remain in the background compared to her husband throughout the book.
Themes
Chapter 17. Upon returning to Shandy-Hall, Tristram’s father is determined to invoke the subsequent clause of his marriage contract and force his wife to have their next child there, not in London. He does not tell Tristram’s mother of this plan until Tristram has already been conceived. Lying in bed with his wife and already annoyed at her for asking about the clock and interrupting Tristram’s conception, Tristram’s father explains his intentions to his wife and makes clear that he will not compromise. Tristram’s mother, well-aware of her husband’s temper, resolves to make the best of her situation.
Through a series of digressions, Tristram has looped back to the very first chapter and the moment of his conception. Having explained his father’s legal right to make Mrs. Shandy give birth at Shandy-Hall, Tristram has now proven the location of his birth, and with this description of his mother’s practical response to her husband’s domineering nature, Tristram foreshadows the midwife debate.
Themes
Chapter 18. Tristram’s mother, resigned to giving birth in the country, is determined to take control of the circumstances of childbirth in other ways. She insists upon the services of the local midwife, despite the fact that their neighborhood is also home to a doctor with significant expertise in childbirth. Mrs. Shandy, however, wants nothing to do with this doctor, and wishes to contract the midwife’s services alone. Tristram sees in this a great depth of character, and he points to the similarly obstinate behavior of his mistress Jenny as he writes the book.
Mrs. Shandy matches her husband in stubbornness but chooses to pick her battles. Her insistence on having a midwife oversee Tristram’s birth ties together the disparate threads of his various earlier digressions. Though it is unclear why Mrs. Shandy refuses to let the local doctor treat her, her refusal invokes contemporary debates: obstetrics was a new field of medicine in the eighteenth century, and doctors had to compete with well-established midwifes and their traditional methods. Tristram’s introduction of Jenny foregrounds the self-conscious nature of his narration, referencing the production of the book even as he narrates it.
Themes
Tristram’s father is disconcerted but does not feel he can deny his wife’s wishes, as society will already judge him for forcing her to return to Shandy-Hall from London. His worry is not merely a result of his need for control, however, but stems from his strong views upon life and society. Tristram’s father is strongly opposed to the mass migration of both people and money from the countryside to London, which he believes undermines both the economy and national character of Britain, threatening political disaster. Tristram’s father imagines that if he were an absolute monarch, he would require all travelers to the city to show proof of their business there, and if they did not truly need to be in London, he would have them deported back to the countryside.
Tristram’s father’s domineering attitude is counterbalanced by a deep love for his wife and a legalistic respect for her autonomy, as their elaborate marriage contract would suggest. His worries about growing urbanization and the centralization of the British economy in London reflect widespread anxieties in the eighteenth century. His musings on what he would do as an absolute monarch are just musings, however, as he is a deep believer in English liberty and each person’s right to self-determination, despite his own strong views on what they should do with that liberty.
Themes
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Tristram’s mother stands her ground, and having conceded to give birth in the countryside refuses to negotiate other aspects of the birth with her husband. They eventually agree that though the doctor will be called, he will be paid only to socialize with Walter and Toby while the midwife helps Mrs. Shandy give birth. Tristram then cautions the reader note to mistake his mistress Jenny for his wife. He also argues against any lewd interpretation of their relationship. Referencing French romances, Tristram describes his connection to Jenny as one of chaste, sentimental friendship.
Tristram’s explanation that the doctor will only be there on standby as the midwife helps his mother give birth foreshadows that all will not go according to plan. His coy insistence that there is nothing lewd about his relationship with Jenny is highly ironic, as the French romances he references were widely considered to be anything but chaste.
Themes
Chapter 19. Tristram feels compelled to introduce one of his father’s more bizarre opinions, cautioning the reader not to reject it out of hand or mock it too viciously. This fancy of Tristram’s father’s is his belief that first names play a fundamental role in determining the character and behavior of the people they are given to. Referencing ancient heroes and philosophers, Tristram’s father argues that by giving an individual a certain name, their parents inspire them to live up to it— to both good and evil ends. His favorite example is whether any parent would consent to naming their child “Judas,” even for an offer of money.
Walter’s theory of names illustrates his character, especially his penchant for all-encompassing theories of human nature. Like Walter’s later theories, this system of thinking is at once "scientific” and based on intuition, turning Walter’s hunches into a way to explain the world. By presenting his father’s strange, exaggerated ideas, however, Tristram subtly suggests that all “scientific” theories are elaborate systems based on a hunch.
Themes
Walter Shandy is an excellent debater, despite not being especially well read in philosophy. Sharpening his wit in various arguments, Walter developed an impressive philosophical vocabulary without knowing the names of his arguments and strategies, resulting in a singular worldview and style of arguing for it. Walter’s theory of names is central to his beliefs, and certain names elicit strong reactions from him one way or the other. Walter’s absolute least favorite name is none other than “Tristram,” and he believes anyone bearing such a name is utterly incapable of greatness. Tristram bemoans his father’s sad fate, but he delays explaining the story of his name until he has first narrated his birth.
Walter’s singular way of thinking is derived from his singular, largely self-taught education. Though Walter’s lack of formal training in philosophy has led him to bizarre ideas like his theory of names, it is also the source of his creative adaption of philosophical systems and ideas. Tristram foreshadows further misadventures for himself and his father, suggesting that he will receive his name by some unhappy accident.
Themes
Chapter 20. Tristram chastises the reader, addressed as “Madam,” for not gleaning from the previous chapter that his mother was not Catholic. He insists the reader reread the chapter to grasp this, an exercise he considers educational, not punitive, and muses disappointedly on the contemporary lack of reading comprehension.
Tristram teases the reader, berating them for failing to notice a clue he had not alerted them to. His command that the reader reread the previous chapter is yet another intentional disruption of the flow of the narrative, as he refuses to tell his story in a standard, linear way.
Themes
The reader returns, still unable to see how he has made clear that his mother is not Catholic, and so Tristram explains that Catholic doctors at the Sorbonne have decided that a child may be christened before they are born, and so his assertion that he cannot tell the story of his naming until he has told the story of his birth would not be true if Mrs. Shandy was Catholic. In order to make this entirely clear, and as an exercise in close reading, Tristram includes in full a letter in French detailing the Catholic doctors’ justification for christening unborn children with a baptism by injection. He compliments the doctors and wonders why they do not go a step further and baptize all homunculi even before conception, if that can be done without harm to the father.
Tristram’s explanation makes clear that the reader could not possibly have gleaned that Mrs. Shandy was not a Catholic from reading the previous chapter, as they were unaware of the Catholic doctors’ report. Tristram’s blasphemous suggestion that homunculi be baptized before conception is also a lewd joke: many believed that the male genitalia contained the full homunculus, which only needed to be implanted in the uterus to grow, and so Tristram’s suggestion would require injecting holy water into the penis.
Themes
