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. Walter asks Dr. Slop if he has any objection, but as they do not know whether it is a Catholic or Protestant sermon—it is only clear that the sermon is on the subject of conscience—Dr. Slop is happy to listen to it.
Though by the eighteenth century British Protestants and Catholics largely lived in peace, the memory of seventeenth-century religious conflict certainly still looms large for the Shandys and Dr. Slip.
Themes
Chapter 17. Before Trim reads the sermon, Tristram insists on describing to the reader Trim’s attitude as a speaker. Trim stands not in a military pose, but hunched over, with his right leg straight and his left leg slightly bent. Tristram describes how Trim holds the sermon loosely but firmly in his left hand, with his right hand at his side with the palm open. Trim’s face is calm, confident, and relaxed as he begins the sermon.
As Tristram suggested earlier, Trim is known for his eloquence. Tristram’s elaborate description shows just how effectively Trim is able to command his audience’s attention, a deft showmanship which humorously contrasts with the rest of his appearance and demeanor.
Themes
Trim, reading the sermon, urges listeners to trust in their good conscience. But Walter soon interrupts him, finding the tone of the sermon overly harsh. Trim assures him that is how it is intended in the text. Dr. Slop agrees, guessing that the author of the sermon is a Protestant. This causes everyone to start arguing about religion. When Dr. Slop suggests that a Catholic writing in such a tone would be sent to the Inquisition Trim becomes very emotional, explaining the story of his brother Tom. Tom moved to Lisbon and married the widow of a Jew. The Inquisition imprisoned him 14 years ago, and Trim has not heard from him since. Trim cries. Once he has calmed down, Walter urges him to read on.
Walter’s and Dr. Slop’s (and to a lesser extent Toby’s) constant interruptions as Trim reads parody the reader’s confusion as Tristram narrates his story. Indeed, the random, unexpected presence of the sermon in Toby’s copy of Stevinus is a thinly veiled reference to the inclusion of seemingly irrelevant digressions in Tristram’s own narration. As hinted at previously, religious tensions quickly emerge when Dr. Slop brings up the Inquisition, an institution seen in the Protestant world, and especially England, as dictatorial and oppressive.
Themes
Trim begins the sermon again, arguing that one can depend on their conscience to guide them through right and wrong. Dr. Slop is convinced that the author is indeed a Protestant. Walter commends both the writing and Trim’s reading of it. The sermon continues, affirming that if a person may trust their conscience, then anyone with a good conscience must be a good person too. The sermon then changes tack, however, arguing that while this may appear to be the case, self-love can cloud a person’s judgment and invalidate this argument. In fact, a person can live in utter sin and feel that they have a clean conscience. And in this case, the sermon asks, can conscience help people distinguish right from wrong?
Dr. Slop and Walter’s competing interpretations of the sermon both say much more about their own preoccupations than about the sermon itself. This method of reading is exactly what the sermon itself criticizes, as it asks how a person can distinguish right from wrong when reason is insufficient and one’s passions are not always trustworthy.
Themes
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Dr. Slop asserts that a Catholic would not be able to feel that they have a clean conscience while living wickedly, and he quickly becomes distracted again arguing with Walter and Toby. Trim continues with the sermon, describing different ways a person can feel that they have a clean conscience while living wickedly by following the letter but not the spirit of the law. The sermon then lambasts Catholicism as another form of good conscience laden with sin. It is not enough for one to follow earthly laws to have a good conscience, the sermon argues—religion and morality are required too. Likewise, the law is necessary to restrain those who are untroubled by their conscience while abusing their fellow human beings. Walter praises the sermon’s logic, and he notes with disappointment that Dr. Slop has fallen asleep.
The sermon’s invocation of the law draws upon the Enlightenment tradition, particularly its English variety, arguing that law and religion are both necessary but not totalizing systems for living a morally righteous life, and that a balance between the two is needed. Dr. Slop’s falling asleep is perhaps a comment on his own conscience, which may not be as clean as he insists it is. It could also allude to certain readers who close their minds to ideas they do not wish to engage with.
Themes
Walter asks Trim what he thinks about the sermon, and Trim responds that the sermon’s metaphorical invocation of seven watchmen in a tower is unrealistic, treating it as a serious question of fortification; Toby agrees. Trim reads on, and the sermon continues to argue for the inseparability of religion and morality. Not only are these two measures of conscience inextricable from each other, but each are equally unreliable guarantees of righteous behavior on their own. The sermon once again criticizes Catholicism, offending Dr. Slop, who has woken up, and prompting him to insult Trim. Walter defuses their argument by urging Trim to finish the sermon.
Trim and Toby’s excessively literal interpretation of the sermon is another variety of bad readership, as they allow their hobby-horse and passions to overdetermine their interpretation, rather than considering it with an open mind. The first of several instances of Dr. Slop’s rude behavior toward Trim would support the idea that Dr. Slop’s conscience is indeed not entirely clean.
Themes
The sermon turns to the Inquisition, upsetting Trim once again, who becomes convinced that the victim of the Inquisition it describes is his brother Tom. Trim struggles to read on and constantly interjects until the sermon has moved past the subject. In conclusion, the sermon argues that conscience is not an infallible tool to determine right from wrong but plays the same role as a judge, interpreting the rules of religion and morality and applying them to a given situation, just as a judge interprets the law.
Just as the reader cannot help but interpret the story through the lens of their passions, however, so too does the narrator’s telling the story reflect their own preoccupations: in Trim’s case, the fate of his brother Tom. In presenting this, Tristram suggests that the author is no more infallible than the reader, just as religion is no more infallible than the law.
Themes
Walter compliments Trim’s reading once again. Dr. Slop criticizes Trim’s commentary, which Trim defends as the result of his heightened emotions—in Walter’s opinion that is exactly why Trim read so well. Everyone is disappointed that the sermon’s author has lost it and will not read it in church. They wonder how it got into Toby’s copy of Stevinus. Walter has no idea but is confident, based on the style, that the author of the sermon is none other than Yorick. Tristram notes that this is in fact correct: Yorick had borrowed Toby’s copy of Stevinus and accidentally left his sermon in it when he returned it.
Dr. Slop’s criticism of Trim’s commentary is perhaps an allusion to imagined criticism of Tristram’s digressions; rather than holding the story back, he argues, they form an essential part of it. The revelation that this powerfully written but divisive sermon is authored by Yorick supports Tristram’s earlier claims that Yorick was willing to make enemies for his ideals, as those who feel called out by the sermon will certainly not take well to it.
Themes
Tristram then explains that the sermon was lost once again after its return to Yorick following its discovery in the Stevinus book. Yorick dropped it through a hole in his coat pocket. It was then recovered by a beggar, sold to another parson, and preached at the cathedral in York after Yorick’s death. Tristram, for his part, promises to publish a collection of Yorick’s sermons.
Tristram’s explanation of the sermon’s unexpected fate after Yorick recovers it suggests that while there is something accidental about all storytelling, great ideas reach their audience one way or another.
Themes
Chapter 18. Obadiah returns with Dr. Slop’s equipment and is rewarded his two crowns. As Dr. Slop prepares to examine Mrs. Shandy, Walter explains to him her insistence on the midwife’s care. He says that Dr. Slop is only there in case the midwife needs his help. Dr. Slop is surprised and wonders why Walter did not bargain harder with Mrs. Shandy. When Dr. Slop starts to explain the recent advances in obstetrics, Toby tries to return to conversation to military science.
Dr. Slop’s question to Walter underscores the comedic nature of Walter and Mrs. Shandy’s disagreement and the strangeness of bartering with one’s spouse as if one were in business negotiations with them. Toby’s attempt to redirect the conversation toward fortifications comes apparently out of nowhere, suggesting that Tristram will explain just what kind of misunderstanding led his uncle to bring up his hobby-horse again.
Themes
Chapter 19. Tristram begins another digression, as he must now inform the reader of something that he should have explained much earlier. Tristram’s father’s theory of names isn’t his only theory: it’s part of an intricate system of equally idiosyncratic beliefs. One of Walter’s strongest beliefs is in the importance of wit, which stems from the soul. This belief is matched by his faith that the soul can be precisely located in the body. Studying anatomy and philosophy, Walter became convinced that the soul—and therefore wit—is found in the medulla oblongata. The lack of wit in many people, Walter believes, is therefore the result of that part of the head being distorted in childbirth as the baby is delivered head-first.
Walter’s theory of wit (another key part of the Shandean system) draws on and parodies a number of popular scientific and pseudoscientific theories of the eighteenth century. Many scientists and philosophers hoped to prove the existence of the soul through anatomy. Walter’s belief that the soul is the source of wit, however, is almost an inversion of the reigning theories; as Tristram himself will discuss later, wit was often opposed to judgment or wisdom and considered to be a frivolous quality. Walter’s theory that distortion of the skull prevents the development of wit parodies historical theories of physiognomy and its relationship to human personality.
Themes
Walter is convinced that Tristram must be born feet-first or, even better, by caesarian section, in order to ensure that his head and the soul within it come out undamaged. Mrs. Shandy, however, flatly refuses to entertain a caesarian section. Believing that Tristram’s brother Bobby, born head-first and thoroughly lacking in wit proves his theorem, Walter turns to Dr. Slop to ensure a feet-first birth for Tristram. Tristram promises the reader that this will explain the alliance to come between his father and Dr. Slop. It will also explain the loss of his nose and the story of his being named Tristram, much to his father’s disappointment.
Having explained Walter’s strong desire for a modern, scientific birth, Tristram has finally made clear why his parents fought so bitterly over whether he would be delivered by the midwife or Dr. Slop. Mrs. Shandy’s resistance to a caesarian section is quite understandable, as the process was known as having an extreme high mortality rate for mothers in the eighteenth century. Tristram also once again foreshadows both the loss of his nose and his being named Tristram, two additional tragedies that will soon befall his father.
Themes
