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 26. Tristram describes the development of Trim’s invention: Trim, seeking a method for continuous firing during the siege, struck upon the idea of using smoke—and, to do so, his Turkish tobacco pipes. Adding extra tubes, he connected them to the cannons and was thereby able to fire all the cannons at once. Tristram comments on the unexpected places one finds ideas of true genius and says he would give his shirt to understand such mysteries. Trim, having spent most of the night building and testing his firing apparatus, went to bed feeling satisfied.
Despite his lack of formal education, Trim’s ingenuity shines forth once again. Trim’s solution is to make the cannons seem like they are firing by puffing smoke through them, via the Turkish pipes, which he connects to the entire battery with extra tubes. Of course, “firing” these cannons now requires smoking an inordinate amount of tobacco.
Themes
Chapter 27. Trim goes out to the bowling green ten minutes before Toby to first a few first shots, using both Turkish tobacco pipes to fire two batteries of cannons. The pleasure of puffing on the pipes is so great that Trim cannot hold himself back, and his attack is in full swing by the time Toby arrives. It is lucky for Walter, Tristram notes, that Toby did not write his will that day.
Trim, having failed to consider how much tobacco he will have to smoke in order to fire his cannons, quickly becomes so absorbed in smoking that he forgets himself and keeps puffing on the pipes. Toby is not upset, however; instead, he is so impressed by Trim’s invention that, as Tristram notes, he would have willed his entire fortune to Trim on the spot.
Themes
Chapter 28. Toby joins Trim, taking up the ivory Turkish tobacco pipe. Soon the pleasure is so great that he moves to the sentry box to sit while he puffs, continuing the attack.
Toby, taking up the second pipe and puffing away, is also quickly overcome by the pleasure of smoking. He abandons his siege to lie in the sentry box, smoking and lazing about, while technically still being on the attack.
Themes
Chapter 29. Tristram begs the reader for help moving Toby and his model fortifications out of the way in order to present a different side of Toby. This will not be completely unfamiliar, however, as the reader has seen enough of Toby to gauge how he will act. Toby, Tristram reminds readers, is utterly ignorant and overly trusting when it comes to women. Tristram interrupts his description of Toby’s modesty, however, realizing it is coming at least 10 pages too soon.
Tristram, trusting that the reader has come to know Toby well at this point in the novel, suggests that they use that understanding of his character to make sense of his behavior in love. Of course, Tristram has already mentioned Toby’s amours and their ultimate failure. Tristram then stops himself before properly getting into the subject of Toby’s amours, deciding that more context is necessary first.
Themes
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Chapter 30. People who have never fallen in love make up the majority of great historical heroes, Tristram argues, as they were too busy for romance. This was the case for Toby too, until the Treaty of Utrecht—the worst thing fate did that year, according to Tristram.
Tristram’s comparison of Toby to historical heroes ironically suggests that Toby’s “campaigns” are of world-historical importance; love, on the other hand, is a mere distraction. Toby’s “heroic” project, however, is foiled by the Treaty of Utrecht, the peace treaty that ended the War of Spanish Succession in 1713. The irony of describing the peace treaty as a catastrophe is not lost on Tristram.
Themes
