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 1. Tristram explains that he has begun a new volume in order to explain the “perplexities” that Toby’s wound to the groin, which he received at the siege of Namur, forced him to confront. Tristram recounts the history of the siege, in which the English and the Dutch attempted to seize Namur from the French, concentrating their forces on St. Nicholas’s gate to break through the fortifications. Toby, who witnessed this firsthand, struggles to recount the story as he feels compelled to explain to the listener the specifics of the fortifications over which the battle was fought. Toby quickly becomes lost in technical and terminological distinctions, beginning with the difference between a scarp and a counterscarp.
In order to explain Toby’s “perplexities,” Tristram feels compelled to narrate the story of Toby’s wound. Toby’s role in the siege of Namur was relatively unimportant; what troubles Toby as he recovers is not so much a sense of regret as a need to understand the siege in its totality: a need he did not realize he had until he tries to explain the story of his wound to others. It is this drive to understand his injury which motivates Toby’s hobby-horse.
Themes
Because of Toby’s attention to detail, the conversations at his bedside as he recovers from the wound quickly become obscure and hard to follow. This causes Toby immense frustration, and he becomes fixated on these small differences and the difficulties of explaining them to others. Toby falls into a depression for three months, emerging out of it only when he is suddenly inspired to map the siege of Namur and locate the precise point where he received his wound. This, he reasons, will give him a visual tool to help him explain to visitors the nuances of fortifications. This, Tristram explains, was the origin of Toby’s hobby-horse.
Toby’s interest in fortifications is so far only an interest; what distinguishes it from being a coherent theory is his inability to communicate it to others. It is only once Toby strikes upon the idea of mapping his wound that he truly begins to develop his hobby-horse. This process mirrors the development of science and other Enlightenment theories from intuition to systematic, rational thinking. Of course, the absurdity of Toby’s hobby-horse suggests that Tristram reserves a degree of skepticism for science, too.
Themes
Chapter 2. Tristram cautions against leaving open opportunities for critics to attack one’s work, whether by writing carelessly or by failing to make the critics feel respected as readers. Tristram suggests that a critic might ask how Toby, a military officer, could have such an indecisive and confused personality. In response to this hypothetical critic, Tristram asks if the critic has read Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and paraphrases the essay to recount all the ways in which humans misinterpret the world. This is not, however, the source of Toby’s confusion, Tristram tells the critic. Toby’s confusion, rather, is a problem of language.
Tristram makes explicit the comparison between Toby’s hobby-horse and Enlightenment philosophy by invoking Locke. Agreeing with Locke, Tristram argues that human understanding is full of misunderstanding, an idea that dovetails neatly with Tristram’s own belief that humans are governed by their passions as much (or more than) by reason. Tristram’s assertion that Toby’s problem is one of language and not interpretation is a red herring, however, for Tristram has already made clear that he believes that language mediates all human understanding and misunderstanding.
Themes
Chapter 3. Tristram returns to Toby’s story. Having acquired a map of Namur, Toby commits himself to studying it, along with other literature on fortifications and sieges. Each aspect of fortifications that Toby masters only leads him deeper into his studies, and within a year he has expanded his research to all the fortified towns of Flanders and Italy. Toby’s library of books on military architecture continues to grow; next he turns to the study of projectiles. Trying to understand why cannonballs do not fire in a straight line, Toby studies physics more broadly. Tristram cries out against this, warning Toby—and the reader—of the dangers of the obsessive search for knowledge, which will exasperate Toby’s wound rather than heal it.
The endlessly digressive nature of Toby’s studies mirrors the digressive nature of Tristram’s storytelling, suggesting that reading and writing are equally full of unavoidable detours. Toby’s frustration with physics also recalls Tristram’s own apologies for being unable to narrate his story in a more linear way; in both cases, trying to read or write more straightforwardly requires even more digressions as one makes sense of each new character, place, or event. The difference between Tristram and Toby, however, is that Tristram’s digressions are motivated by a sense of play, while Toby is on a quest for the “truth.”
Themes
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Chapter 4. Tristram justifies the abrupt ending of the previous chapter by arguing that, like painters, he believes it is better to be dishonest in service of beauty than strictly realistic when it would make his writing less effective. He then returns to Toby’s story. In the third year of his recovery, Toby realizes that his study of physics is aggravating his wound, and so he abandons his work. He then begins to break his regular habits, refusing to shave or allow his wound to be dressed. When Walter confronts him, Toby eloquently and passionately demands to be healed at once, as he is unable to bear his continued confinement. To Tristram, this is an indication of Toby’s powerful desire for life and liberty.
Alluding again to the dangers of too aggressively looking for the truth, Tristram explains that he is writing to create a particular—and pleasurable—effect for his readers. Eventually, Toby also realizes he will never be able to discover everything and that his excessive research is leading him to neglect his own health. Understanding this, Toby wishes to balance his passions and reason and return to active life, albeit with a new hobby-horse.
Themes
Chapter 5. Toby has abandoned reason and is fully committed to his hobby-horse. His wound is nearly healed, and so Toby resolves to set out for Shandy-Hall with his manservant, Trim, slipping out while Walter is not home. Toby leaves his home, Tristram explains, because he is unable to properly model sieges in his small, cluttered room: he’s constantly knocking his equipment off the table. Toby asks Trim to measure the table and have a larger one made, but Trim suggests instead that they model sieges outdoors at Shandy-Hall, where they will have much more space to do so. Trim is also a disabled former soldier who was shot in the knee at the battle of Landen, after which he became Toby’s beloved servant. During Toby’s recovery, Trim has become equally proficient in fortification.
Though Toby has given himself over entirely to his hobby-horse, sharing his hobby-horse with Trim keeps him sane. Trim’s helpful suggestions and patient support prevent the more self-destructive expressions of Toby’s passions and keep him grounded in the world outside himself—even if it is a model world, inhabited only by the two of them. Indeed, in a sense, this particular hobby-horse belongs equally to both Toby and Trim.
Themes
Tristram, describing Trim, notes that Trim loves to hear himself speak, and it is difficult to stop him once he has begun. Toby is so fond of Trim, however, that he is unable to bring himself to silence him. The story returns to Toby’s room, where Trim suggests that it would be more effective to recreate the various fortifications depicted in Toby’s maps as three-dimensional models, with Toby measuring and Trim building with a shovel. Though Toby must repeatedly correct Trim’s usage of terminology, he agrees with Trim’s plan. Toby owns a small house near Walter’s, which has a bowling green in the yard perfect for their purposes. Though Toby and Trim’s campaigns are a great story in their own right, Tristram insists that it is time to return to the story of the day of his birth.
Whereas Toby struggles greatly to find the words to express himself, Trim is unable to rein in his eloquence. Their opposite characteristics serve to balance them out as a duo. Trim’s practicality and common sense guides Toby’s knowledge, while Toby is able to correct the mistakes Trim makes in the complicated science of fortifications. Before actually showing how this dynamic functions, however, Tristram insists it is time to end this digression and return to the main plot.
Themes
