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 22. There is no resisting fate, Trim warns. Then he continues his story. On Sunday, while the peasants are out, the Beguine nun comes in to see Trim, whose wound is much better. She asks to see it and offers to rub it. As she continues to rub his knee, and then moves her hands upward, Trim realizes he is in love. She rubs more and more intensely. At this point in Trim’s story, Toby interrupts before Trim can describe what happens next. Toby suggests that Trim grabbed the nun’s hand and kisses it before making a speech declaring his love. Tristram comments that what really happens next is irrelevant, as Toby’s description contains the timeless essence of romance.
Trim’s description of the moment he falls in love is more reminiscent of a sexual encounter, as the Beguine’s medical rub turns into sexual pleasuring of Trim with her hands. Toby’s interruption leaves this ambiguous, as he provides his own chaste ending to story, while Tristram’s assertion that what matters is the “essence” of romance could support either interpretation.
Themes
Chapter 23. As soon as Trim finishes his story, widow Wadman leaves her garden and heads to Toby’s sentry box, seizing the opportunity to approach Toby while he is in a romantic state of mind. Toby orders Trim to clear the field, leaving him and widow Wadman alone. Tristram asks the reader to consider how futile it is to expect things to go according to plan, given the unpredictable nature of events. Widow Wadman cannot repeat her usual attack as the plan of Dunkirk hanging in the sentry box no longer corresponds to the bowling green, forcing her to improvise.
Widow Wadman does not fail to take advantage of Toby’s “weakness” and attack with all her might, hoping Trim’s story has primed Toby for romance. Tristram references the old wisdom of military strategy that no battle goes according to plan; like the greatest of generals, widow Wadman has to adapt to events on the “battlefield” as they happen.
Themes
Chapter 24. Widow Wadman tells Toby she has something stuck in her eye and asks him to look into it, squeezing onto the bench next to him. Toby innocently looks deep into her eyes, a rare thing, as he tends not to make eye contact. Tristram imagines Toby as Galileo looking at the sun as he looks in vain for whatever is stuck in widow Wadman’s eyes, and Tristram warns him that if he looks for a second longer he will be “undone.”
Widow Wadman’s clever idea is to draw Toby into extended eye contact, seducing him with her gaze. Tristram’s comparison of Toby to the astronomer Galileo is doubly humorous; Galileo observed the moon, not the sun, which would have blinded him if he looked at it through a telescope.
Themes
Chapter 25. Tristram argues that eyes are like cannons, insofar as it is their carriages that enable them to function. Tristram asks the reader to keep this in mind when considering widow Wadman’s eye. Toby says he cannot see anything in it, and she tells him to look into her pupil. Tristram claims that widow Wadman’s eyes were perfectly created to entrap Toby.
Tristram compares the human body to the carriage, or wheels, or a cannon, and the eyes to the cannon itself, subverting the idiom that the eyes are the window to the soul. Widow Wadman’s eyes are effective weapons, Tristram argues, only because she has skillfully deployed them on the battlefield.
Themes
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Chapter 26. Tristram claims that nothing distinguishes Toby and Walter’s characters more than their different responses to love. Walter was very passionate before marriage, raging against love and writing heartfelt rants full of swearing. Toby, by contrast, submits to love entirely but doesn’t act on his emotions. Toby also mistakes the sensation of love for other passions, as that same day he and Walter try to prevent a forest nearby from being chopped down for the poor. A footnote suggests Tristram must mean “the poor in spirit.”
As Tristram has alluded to already, his father and uncle’s distinct personalities are thrown into sharp relief by the extreme, passion-inflaming circumstances of love. Walter’s bombastic views on love ironically contrast the quiet domesticity of his life together with Mrs. Shandy. Toby, on the other hand, is very passionate but in a completely unthinking, confused way.
Themes
Chapter 27. Toby, being unworldly, feels unashamedly chivalrous about his new romance, and he tells Trim that he is in love.
Toby, ever the soldierly gentleman, approaches his newly discovered love like a knight on a quest, without any subtlety or sense of humor—or embarrassment.
Themes
Chapter 28. Trim is surprised, as Toby was perfectly well two days earlier when he told the story of the king of Bohemia. Toby asks what ever happened to that story, but Trim says they lost it. Toby explains that widow Wadman has “left a ball” in his heart, and Trim excitedly says that she will not be able to run away or withstand a siege. Toby resolves to tell her politely first, however. Trim advises him to approach her passionately, arguing that widow Wadman cannot “[with]stand a siege,” and to be polite afterward.
Trim’s response once again echoes Walter’s description of love as a disease. Toby and Trim halfhearted recollection of the unfinished story of the king of Bohemia ironically mirrors Tristram’s own unfinished digressions, scattered in the path of his novel’s zigzagging plot. Trim encourages Toby in the language he knows will inspire him best, that of sieges and fortifications.
Themes
Meanwhile, widow Wadman and Bridget have already been discussing the situation. Widow Wadman is worried that Toby’s wound to the groin will be an obstacle to their romance. Bridget suggests that she entice Trim to court her too, which he does. Trim proposes to Toby that they get out his best wig and his scarlet breeches. Toby prefers his red plush breeches, which Trim dismisses as “clumsy.”
Widow Wadman continues to develop her crafty strategy, recruiting Bridget as a spy to learn the secret of Toby’s wound to the groin—of course, Bridget may have ulterior motives and a genuine interest in Trim. Toby has not been out in society in his best clothes in a long time, and he is unsure what to wear to impress widow Wadman.
Themes
