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 15. Dr. Slop pities the fact that a person, like a candle, can be burnt at both ends. Tristram would prefer to be burnt only from the top, from his head down to his heart, his liver, and bowels. Toby interrupts Slop when he mentions the blind gut, asking him where in the body it is located. Dr. Slop replies that it is next to the colon, and Walter asks if he means in a man. Dr. Slop answers that it is in exactly the same place in a woman.
Dr. Slop’s description of human decay recalls Walter’s medical theories in the Tristrapoedia; as a metaphor, it could also apply to Toby’s amours. The blind gut is the beginning of the large intestine. Walter’s confusion as to the blind gut’s location in men and women is quite ironic, given his frustration with Toby’s ignorance of female anatomy.
Themes
Chapter 16. Widow Wadman, to ensure her success in wooing Toby, plans to light him at both ends at once. Despite her inability to find any weapons with which to attack Toby, metaphorically speaking, widow Wadman is presented with a golden opportunity by chance. Tristram is unsure if he has told the reader before that while Toby and Trim conduct their sieges, Toby always made sure to hang a map of the fortifications under attack in his sentry box. Widow Wadman, coming into the sentry box, only has to grab the map and ask Toby about it to enflame his passions. Widow Wadman then grabs Toby’s pipe to point at something or over, forcing him to explain the map with his finger, and enabling her to place her hand next to his and ensure that they touch. Tristram compares this to skirmishing before a battle, the attacks on Toby’s flanks discombobulating his center.
Tristram appropriates Dr. Slop’s metaphor, recalling Walter’s earlier descriptions of love as a disease. Tristram knows that he never mentioned Toby’s maps, yet he coyly pretends to be correcting his own mistake to smooth the introduction of this new information. The military descriptions Tristram gives of widow Wadman’s flirtatious gestures emphasize not only her clever strategy, but also Toby’s helplessness in the face of her scheme.
Themes
Chapter 17. Tristram concedes that a skeptical person may doubt the true nature of widow Wadman’s attacks. He has proof, however, in the form of a finger- and thumbprint of widow Wadman’s on one of Toby’s old maps. This map is, to Tristram, a more precious heirloom than any Catholic relic.
Tristram’s comparison of his evidence of widow Wadman’s strategy is also yet another opportunity to poke fun at Catholicism. Catholics, unlike Protestants, treasure relics, which are typically everyday items used by saints and other holy individuals.
Themes
Chapter 18. Trim reports to Toby that the fortifications have been destroyed, and that the housekeeper has used the treaty as kindling for the fire. Toby takes this as a sign that their services are no longer needed, much to his and Trim’s disappointment. Trim refuses to take his equipment away, however, resolving to do it early the next morning before Toby is awake. In the meantime, he moves closer to Toby to begin a speech.
Returning to the period of time immediately after the Treaty of Utrecht, this chapter finds Toby and Trim despondent at what seems to be the end of their hobby-horse. The reader of course knows that Toby’s amours will not end in marriage and that there will indeed be another war on the European continent.
Themes
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Chapter 19. Trim, warning Toby that he’s about to speak foolishly (“for a soldier”), comments on the pity of destroying their fortifications but argues it would be just as much of a pity to leave them up. Toby agrees, but Trim continues, saying the reason why it would be foolish to leave the fortifications up is because since their sieges began, he has not entertained himself or Toby with anything else, including storytelling. Toby compliments Trim’s storytelling. Trim proposes to tell Toby about the king of Bohemia and his seven castles. Toby agrees, as long as it is not a happy story or a thoroughly sad story, but Trim assures him it is neither.
Trim, while equally engaged by the sieges he has conducted with his master, yearns to make use of his eloquence, too. Toby is meanwhile too depressed to even know what he wants, and so he agrees to hear Trim’s story as long as it does not inflame his passions too powerfully—in one way or another.
Themes
Trim pulls off his Montero cap and bows without getting up, a motion that Tristram points out is impressively difficult. Then Trim clear his throat and begins his story. Toby immediately interrupts him to point out that his cap in on the ground. Trim picks it up but, noticing its worn state, then he puts it down again between his feet. Toby points out that nothing is made to last in this world. Trim asks what he will do without Tom’s gifts, and Toby says there is nothing to be done about such mysteries of life. Trim agrees, then he begins the story again.
As Tristram has pointed out, Trim’s carefully positioned posture is a critical part of his speechmaking skills. Moreover, Trim’s gestures help reveal the unconscious workings of his mind. Toby and Trim, both grieving their hobby-horse and, in Trim’s case, the fate of Tom, are at least able to commiserate together.
Themes
Trim does not know the historical details of the story, and Toby continuously interrupts him to assure him that he does not want to hear them anyway. He suggests Trim make them up as he sees fit, but Trim picks the very worst year possible in which to set the story: 1712, a very bad year for the campaign in Flanders. Toby confesses his distaste for this particular year, both for its association and because he suspects it renders the giants in the story implausible. Trim says there is only one giant, but Toby is unconvinced and suggests the date be moved back several centuries the next time Trim tells it. Trim insists he will never tell it again and starts once more.
Trim’s attempt to tailor the story to not upset Toby only makes things worse—a comment, perhaps, on Tristram’s distrust for the reader, as well as a reply to his critics. Toby is not only upset by the association of the story with the war in Flanders, but with the implausibility it adds to the story. It was still common a folk belief in the eighteenth century that giants had existed but had been extinct for some time, hence Toby’s willingness to believe in the story’s giant, had the story been set farther in the past.
Themes
Toby interrupts again, this time to tell Trim to leave the date out entirely, as it is unnecessary. Trim is perturbed but won over by Toby’s explanation that, as a soldier, it is understandable that he is not well-versed in history. Trim mixes up chronology with geography, however, and this prompts Toby to scold him for being so geographically incompetent as a soldier. He then adds that a soldier should know their chronology too, as it is an essential part of the science of war, especially in the case of gunpowder. Toby lectures Trim on the discovery of gunpowder, weighing the various historical arguments for gunpowder’s origin in the Middle East or China. Trim declares that the Chinese are liars. Toby agrees, citing the dismal state of contemporary Chinese fortifications as proof.
Toby and Trim’s argument reveals the difference in their respective understandings of war. While Trim views his soldierly duties primarily in terms of loyalty and honor, Toby is more concerned with the intellectual and scientific side of it, as well as the ways in which the art and science of war incorporate other disciplines, geography and chronology included. Their comments on China reflect the broad ignorance of China and Chinese history in eighteenth-century Europe.
Themes
This brings Trim back to the seven castles, and he begins his story once more, describing the king as unfortunate. Toby, still distracted, seizes on the word and interrupts again, asking if the king was really unfortunate. Trim explains that the king of Bohemia was a great enthusiast of sailing but could not command a navy because Bohemia has no ports. Toby asks how there could be in a landlocked country. Trim answers that it would be possible if God had willed it, and Toby gingerly disagrees, pointing out that bringing the sea to Bohemia would drown millions of people in the surrounding countries. Toby cannot imagine God having such a lack of compassion. Trim continues his story, and Toby continues to interrupt him.
Bohemia was a central European territory of the Hapsburg monarchy and is today part of the Czech Republic. Toby and Trim’s disagreement over Bohemia’s hypothetical ports, ridiculous as it may be, reflects their differing views on fate and the kindness of God. While Trim makes no claim to understand God’s motives and believes that anything is possible, Toby refuses to believe that God would allow a catastrophic flood to happen. This is of course quite ironic when one considers the role of the flood in the Bible, which destroyed a much greater portion of the world.
Themes
Trim continues his story. The king of Bohemia, he explains, firmly believed in predestination. Trim agrees with the king and tells Toby that he thinks the bullet that wounded him was meant to do so in order to place him in Toby’s service, where he is well taken care of in his old age. Moreover, if not for that bullet Trim would never have been in love. Toby has never heard of this before and asks Trim to explain.
Predestination was a Protestant doctrine arguing that God had already chosen who would go to heaven and who would go to hell. Some interpreted it also as predetermining most or all other actions on earth, too, eliminating free will. Trim seems to be of the latter persuasion.
Themes
Trim reminds Toby of the disastrous retreat from Landen, stirring Toby’s emotions with his narration of the battle. Trim continues, explaining that because there were so many wounded, he was left on the battlefield until the next day, when he was picked up by a cart. Trim declares that no wound is more painful than one to the knee. Toby retorts that the groin is worse, citing its proximity to other sensitive body parts. Widow Wadman, in her garden, listens attentively as Trim and Toby argue.
Trim and Toby’s comparison of their wounds is completely pointless, as neither of them is able to experience the other’s pain. Widow Wadman—who they do not realize is eavesdropping—listens to them discuss Toby’s groin and the area around it with both arousal and concern, given the damage of his wound.
Themes
Chapter 20. Trim continues his story, describing the pain in his knee as he was taken off the field to a peasant house nearby. A young woman gives him a cordial and some sugar and persuades the soldiers in the cart to leave him behind so she can care for him. She stays there with Trim and the peasants, nursing him back to health.
Modern battlefield medicine had not yet been developed in the seventeenth century (the battle of Landen took place in 1693), and wounded soldiers were often cared for by locals or religious organizations.
Themes
Trim thinks she is their daughter and offers her money that Tom gave to him before he left for Lisbon. Trim tears up, as he has not yet told Toby that sad story. The woman gives the peasants some of the money to pay for their lodging and promises to take care of Trim. He soon realizes she is a Beguine nun (Beguines travel to care for the sick and are allowed to marry, unlike other nuns). The Beguine nun nurses Trim through the worst of the pain, but he is not in love yet, as he experiences no physical arousal.
Trim has not yet told Toby about Tom because this conversation, and Toby’s amours in general, take place in 1713 after the Treaty of Utrecht, half a decade before Tristram’s birth and Trim’s reading of the sermon. Beguines were not technically nuns: they were a religious order who traveled around Europe to care for the sick and wounded and could leave the Beguine order to marry if they chose.
Themes
Chapter 21. This is no surprise, Trim says, as love, like war, comes on unexpectedly. One Sunday, Trim suddenly realizes he is in love. Toby asks him to narrate how this happened.
Trim emphasizes the comparison between love and war, and the mysterious, unconscious nature of love.
Themes
