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
Dedication. Though Tristram previously dedicated his book to Mr. Pitt, he now wishes after the fact to dedicate it to Lord Pitt. Tristram apologizes for any jealousy this may cause, and as a token of good faith offers up an amusing poem about a peaceful and lonely pastoral life.
Tristram’s apology is a play on Pitt’s change in title; after five years out of government from 1761 to 1766, Pitt was made Viscount and Earl of Chatham.
Themes
Chapter 1. Tristram blames fate for his inability to get to the story of Toby’s love affair until now, when Mrs. Shandy is looking through the keyhole. He repeats Walter’s sarcastic comment about referring to her desire by name. Walter, however, immediately feels guilty, and as Mrs. Shandy gently entwines her arm with his he only feels guiltier. Turning and looking into her eyes, Walter realizes that his wife is too pure to be consumed by lewd desires. Tristram interrupts his narrative to comment on how uniquely the product of his parents he is. His father, he then adds, was wrong to criticize his mother’s motives rather than the act of snooping itself. Keyholes are a sight of wickedness, Tristram claims.
Tristram resituates the narrative where it broke off in the previous volume, with Mrs. Shandy peeping on Toby and Trim as they prepare to woo widow Wadman and Bridget. Walter characteristically regrets being so sarcastic with his wife. Walter’s frequent denunciations of womankind are hard to square with his deep love for Mrs. Shandy. Tristram’s reflections on keyholes suggest that the pull of voyeurism is desire that every individual feels.
Themes
Chapter 2. Tristram continues the story of Toby’s love affair. Trim retrieves Toby’s best wig, but after years in storage it lacks the glamor it once had. Toby, however, has such a gentlemanly nature that he is able to wear it with dignity; the same is true of his other clothes. The perfect final touch would be Toby’s blue and gold shirt, but unfortunately, after so many years, he is no longer able to fit into it. As the tailor accidentally destroyed his scarlet breeches, Toby settles for his red plush ones instead. Trim, meanwhile, is wearing Le Fever’s regimental coat and his Montero cap. Walter comments that they at least look good.
Toby and Trim’s sense of honor and purpose is so honest and unpretentious that it allows them to carry themselves with dignity in even the most ridiculous of situations. The faded quality of Toby’s clothes also indicates just how long it has been since he last went out into society—perhaps not since his wound and subsequent move to Shandy-Hall. Toby has also aged and put on weight, further emphasizing the comedic nature of his gallant pursuit of widow Wadman.
Themes
Chapter 3. Toby turns around to make sure Trim is still with him. Trim twirls his stick to reassure Toby. Toby is nervous, as he is well aware that he does not know the difference between the right and wrong end of a woman and is uneasy around women unless he has a chance to be gallant or courteous. Indeed, widow Wadman is the first women Toby has ever looked in the eye so intensely.
Toby’s fear both recalls and foreshadows his conversation with Walter before Tristram’s birth, in which he reveals that he does not know the right end of a woman from the wrong one—that is, he does not know whether children are both from the vagina or the anus (as this scene takes place approximately five years earlier).
Themes
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Chapter 4. Toby tells Trim, mostly to reassure himself, that widow Wadman cannot possibly misunderstand his intentions. Trim reassures him that she cannot, much like the Jew’s widow in Lisbon did not misunderstand his brother Tom’s desire for her. He bemoans Tom’s fate, telling Toby that if Tom had not married her or had made pork sausages, perhaps he would not be a prisoner of the Inquisition today. Nothing is as important as freedom, Trim argues, twirling his stick to demonstrate. (The book Tristram Shandy includes a squiggly line representing Trim’s twirl here.) Tristram comments that none of Walter’s arguments could ever be so convincing. Toby looks back at the bowling green apprehensively, and Trim realizes that he must exorcize the desire for freedom he just revived in Toby by finishing his story about Tom.
This scene seems to be the first time Trim tells Toby about the fate of his brother Tom. Trim’s comment about pork sausages reflects the fact that Jews who keep kosher do not eat pork; the officers of the Inquisition would therefore know that Tom’s wife is not Christian by her refusal to sell pork sausages. Tristram’s graphic representation of Trim’s twirl of the stick pokes fun at Walter’s—and the author’s—inability to capture some gestures in words, thereby mocking Tristram’s own book, too.
Themes
Chapter 5. Trim continues his story about Tom. Tom, happily settled in comfortable Lisbon, hopes to make something of himself. Learning that the Jewish owner of a local sausage shop has died of strangury, he decides to inquire with the Jew’s widow about taking over the business. Tom visits her under the pretense of buying sausages but hoping to get a wife in the deal too. The servants all wished the well-dressed Tom success—Trim breaks down, in despair that Tom will live the rest of his life in a dungeon despite being such a good soul. Toby tells Trim that he is a good soul too, and Trim cries as they pause in silence.
Tom’s story recalls those of other fortune-seeking Englishmen who journeyed overseas to find success. Strangury is a condition caused by a blocked urinary track; though painful, it is rarely lethal, making the Jew’s death another lewd joke of Tristram’s. Trim’s sadness over his brother’s fate, while tragicomical, asks a serious question to: if God and the universe are good, why do good people suffer?
Themes
