Bawdy humor and inappropriate behavior appear throughout Tristram Shandy, questioning the validity of social norms which prohibit or discourage sexual innuendo and suggesting that such comedy is not only a fact of life, but also a source of delight. Working dirty jokes into the narrative, Sterne allows argues that the distinction between high culture and low culture is a false one and sets out to prove that he can turn the most cultured of references into a sex joke, and vice versa. The first of many reoccurring sexual reference points in Tristram Shandy is the story of Tristram’s great aunt Dinah, who scandalized polite society by having sex with her coachman, who eventually impregnated her. Sterne first touches upon Dinah not as a quick aside, but as evidence of the Shandy character; Tristram’s father, Walter, immediately seizes upon Dinah’s story as proof of his elaborate theory of names, as he believes being christened Dinah predestined her for such illicit sexual escapades (Walter is referring to the Biblical rape of Dinah).
As Tristram elaborates on his father’s theory, it becomes clear that the scandalous story is actually an excuse to talk about an intricate if absurd philosophical system (the “Shandean system”). In a later scene, when Walter, mourning the death of his first son Bobby, is lecturing Toby on the nobility of death, he includes Cornelius Gallus, who died during sex, on his list of the heroic deceased, thereby undercutting the seriousness of his grief with a comical reference to sexual impropriety. When Mrs. Shandy eavesdrops on a later part of this conversation, not realizing that Walter is quoting Socrates, she mistakenly believes he is confessing to fathering a child outside of their marriage. In this humorous scene, domestic misunderstandings, sexual comedy, and ancient philosophy interest—to great comedic effect—exposing the flimsy nature of society’s arguments for keeping them separate. They are all, Sterne suggests, inextricable aspects of human life, and are therefore all equally valid and meaningful subjects for human stories.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Sexuality and Propriety ThemeTracker
Sexuality and Propriety Quotes in Tristram Shandy
Pray my dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind up the clock?—Good G–! cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same time,—Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question? Pray, what was your father saying?—Nothing.
—My father, as I told you, was a philosopher in grain,—speculative,—systematical;—and my aunt Dinah’s affair was a matter of as much consequence to him, as the retrogradation of the planets to Copernicus:—The backslidings of Venus in her orbit fortified the Copernican system, call’d so after his name; and the backslidings of my aunt Dinah in her orbit, did the same service in establishing my father’s system, which, I trust, will for ever hereafter be call’d the Shandean System, after his.
I define a nose, as follows,—intreating only beforehand, and beseeching my readers, both male and female, of what age, complexion, and condition soever, for the love of God and their own souls, to guard against the temptations and suggestions of the devil, and suffer him by no art or wile to put any other ideas into their minds, than what I put into my definition.—For by the word Nose, throughout all this long chapter of noses, and in every other part of my work, where the word Nose occurs,—I declare, by that word I mean a Nose, and nothing more, or less.
As Yorick pronounced the word point blank, my uncle Toby rose up to say something upon projectiles—when a single word, and no more, uttered form the opposite side of the table, drew every one’s ears towards it—a word of all others in the dictionary the last in that place to be expected—a word I am ashamed to write—yet must be written—must be read;—illegal—uncanonical—guess ten thousand guesses, multiplied into themselves—rack—torture your invention for ever, you’re where you was—In short, I’ll tell it in the next chapter.
My father put on his spectacles—looked,—took them off,—put them into the case–all in less than statutable minute; and without opening his lips, turned about, and walked precipitately down stairs: my mother imagined he had stepped down for lint and basilicon; but seeing him return with a couple of folios under his arm, Obadiah following him with a large reading desk, she took it for granted ’twas an herbal, and so drew him a chair to the bed side, that he might consult upon the case at his ease.
—If it be but right done,—said my father, turning to the Section—de sede vel subjecto circumsionis,—for he had brought up Spencer de Legibus Herbraeorum Ritualibus—and Maimonides, in order to confront and examine us altogether.—
—If it be but right done, quote he:—Only tell us, cried my mother, interrupting him, what herbs.—For that, replied my father, you must send for Dr. Slop.
I perceived, then, I was beginning to be in love—
As she continued rub-rub-rubbing—I felt it spread from under her hand, an’ please your honour, to every part of my frame—
The more she rubb’d, and the longer strokes she took—the more fire kindled in my veins—till at length, by two or three strokes longer than the rest—my passion rose to the highest pitch—I seiz’d her hand—
—And then, thou clapped’st it to thy lips, Trim, said my uncle Toby—and madest a speech.
Whether the corporal’s amour terminated precisely in the way my uncle Toby described it, is not material; it is enough that it contain’d in it the essence of all the love-romances which ever have been wrote since the beginning of the world.
—God bless your honour! cried the Corporal—what has a woman’s compassion to do with a wound upon the cap of a man’s knee? had your honour’s been shot into ten thousand splinters at the affair of Landen, Mrs. Wadman would have troubled her head as little about it as Bridget; because, added the Corporal, lowering his voice and speaking very distinctly, as he assigned his reason—
“The knee is such a distance from the main body—whereas the groin, your honour knows, is upon the very curtin of the place.”
My uncle Toby gave a long whistle—but in a note which could scarce be heard across the table.
