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 29. Toby asks Trim to sharpen his sword too, but Trim says it will only get in his way.
After inflaming Toby’s passion with military language, Trim has to remind his master that he is not actually going into battle.
Themes
Chapter 30. Trim fetches Toby new shaving razors. He also repairs his own Montero cap and wears Le Fever’s regimental coat. Trim proposes that once Toby has shaved and dressed, they should march straight up to widow Wadman’s house. There, while Toby “engages” her the parlor, Trim will “attack” Bridget in the kitchen. Toby says he would rather attack a real trench, and Trim comments that a woman is a very different challenge.
Toby is at a loss when faced with confronting widow Wadman and depends on Trim’s strategic advice and moral support. Not only is Trim happy to help his master, but he has his own interests in both courting Bridget and taking the opportunity to go out in his best clothes.
Themes
Chapter 31. The most embarrassing comment Walter could make to Toby in these circumstances is his quoting Hilarion the hermit, who described his self-flagellation as the way he made “his ass (meaning his body) leave off kicking.” Tristram takes care to distinguish between his father’s ass and his hobby-horse, arguing that while the latter is not violent but very useful, the former is a very difficult beast to mount.
Walter’s choice of quote, from a self-flagellating hermit (religious hermits would often self-flagellate, or whip themselves, to stave off sexual urges), is calculated to catch Toby and other conversation partners off guard. Tristram’s distinction between the ass and the hobby-horse emphasizes the difference between carnal desire and the mysterious, non-sexual passions of a hobby-horse.
Themes
Chapter 32. Walter, seeing that Toby is in love, asks him “how goes it with your Asse?” Toby misses the metaphor and thinks Walter is talking about the body part, where he recently had a blister. Even though they are in front of Mrs. Shandy, Dr. Slop, and Yorick, Toby thinks it is more polite than not to use the same terminology as his brother, as he will be forced to commit an indiscretion either way. Toby tells him his “Asse” is much better before he is interrupted by Dr. Slop’s laughter. Mrs. Shandy then says she hears he is in love, and when Toby confirms asks when he knew that he was: Toby answers “When the blister broke.”
Toby misunderstands his brother, thinking Walter is asking him about his blister on his behind. While Toby is shocked and offended that Walter would ask such a question in front of company, he does not wish to embarrass his brother by calling out Walter’s lack of manners and decides to go along with the crass discussion he believes they are having. The implicit comparison of Toby’s amours to a blister on his “Asse” does not bode well.
Themes
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Chapter 33. Walter lectures Toby on love, explaining that the ancients divided love into kinds which affect the brain and the liver. Toby is unconvinced why it matters as long as one marries and has “a few children,” provoking his brother and Dr. Slop’s cries. Walter assures Toby he would be happy to become an uncle, and praises Toby for his gentle nature, saying that if he were an “Asiatick monarch” he would force Toby to produce new subjects for him with different beautiful women on a monthly basis. Toby is not amused.
Toby’s commonsense morality is incompatible with Walter’s outlandish theories of love and sexuality, as much as Walter may respect his brother for it. Walter’s bizarre hypothetical in which he would force Toby to impregnate women references the popular but inaccurate European conception of Asian countries being governed by “Asiatic despotism,” a political system characterized by all-powerful monarchs and completely submissive populations.
Themes
Yorick is in favor of Walter’s theoretical approach to love, adding that he has wasted much of his life trying to understand it. Walter advises Yorick to read Plato, explaining that there is a rational love and a natural love. Walter continues, ignoring Toby’s questions, explaining that the first love is related to truth and philosophy, the second carnal desire. Walter and Dr. Slop agree, for once, on the virtues of virginity.
Walter’s suggestion that Yorick reads Plato in fact draws from Robert Burton’s writings on Plato, not Plato himself. Plato did, however, agree that love was akin to madness. Walter and Dr. Slop’s shared enthusiasm for virginity is largely accidental, as they have reached the same position by drastically different paths; Walter through ancient philosophy, and Dr. Slop through Catholicism.
Themes
Chapter 34. Tristram explains how Walter’s argumentative nature tends to turn the company against him, as he commits himself to arguing in favor of the most untenable of positions. Trim interrupts Walter and Dr. Slop’s discussion of virginity to tell Toby that his scarlet breeches are too worn out to be redone by the tailor. Walter suggests that widow Wadman’s passions may have already peaked. He warns that she may not still love him in a year.
Tristram points out what has already been made quite clear to the reader: that Walter does not argue by the strength of his conviction so much as his love of arguing. Walter’s warning to Toby is yet another bizarre quasi-scientific theory of his own invention, based more off Walter’s reading and musings than familiarity with widow Wadman’s character.
Themes
Trim bets Walter his Montero cap that widow Wadman cannot resist Toby for more than 10 days, but Dr. Slop interrupts to rudely ask him how he knows so much about women. Trim replies that he learned from falling in love with a Catholic clergywoman; Toby explains that she was a Beguine nun. Dr. Slop is enraged but is unable to retort because Walter starts rambling about nuns and Beguines. The company breaks up to attend to their own affairs, and Walter writes Toby a letter of instructions for wooing widow Wadman.
Trim’s reply to Dr. Slop is perhaps the origin of Dr. Slop’s animosity toward him (as this scene takes place before both Trim’s reading of the sermon and his explanation of radical heat and radical moisture), as Dr. Slop feels offended both as Trim’s social superior and on behalf of the Catholic faith.
Themes
Walter, writing to Toby about women and lovemaking while he is in the bedroom with Mrs. Shandy, implores Toby to approach love carefully and with God’s protection. He instructs Toby to shave his whole head clean every four or five days to not surprise widow Wadman with his baldness if his wig comes off. He also tells Toby to remember “That women are timid,” not to wear his breeches too tight or too loose, and to speak softly and avoid pleasantries. He also cautions against giving widow Wadman any serious reading, like Don Quixote, and to be careful letting her hold his hand, lest his “Asse” start kicking. Walter then recommends several ancient diets potions to treat love. He wishes Toby the best until the next war breaks out.
Walter’s instructions to Toby borrow erratically from literary and philosophical sources. Baldness was indeed associated with sexual potency, but the belief that shaving one’s head can help increase one’s potency is Walter’s theory alone. His warning to keep widow Wadman away from serious reading is a tongue-in-cheek joke on behalf of this novel itself, acknowledging the book’s indebtedness to Don Quixote. Ultimately, however, Walter is confident that, one way or another, Toby will abandon widow Wadman and return to his hobby-horse.
Themes
Chapter 35. As Walter writes his letter, Toby and Trim prepare for the next day’s attack, scheduled for eleven o’clock. Walter suggests to Mrs. Shandy that they go wish Toby well before he departs, and they enter just as the clock strikes eleven. There is too much left to tell at the end of the eighth volume alone, Tristram interjects. Walter only has time to put the letter in Toby’s pocket and wish him well. Mrs. Shandy expresses her desire to look through the keyhole, if only out of curiosity. Walter tells her to name her desire for what it is, but to go ahead and look for as long as she likes.
Tristram’s ironic assertion that he has run out of time to tell the rest of the tale allows him to defer the rest of Toby’s amours to the next volume once again. Mrs. Shandy’s desire to look through the keyhole is a metaphor for narrative itself, which gives the reader the opportunity to gaze into someone else’s life—but, as Walter points out, this always carries with it an element of voyeurism.
Themes
