The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is a nine-volume novel published between 1759 and 1767 by English novelist Laurence Sterne. The novel is considered by many scholars as an early forerunner of postmodern literature due to its metafictional commentary on its own narrative. Contemporary critics did not view the novel favorably, though its humor and sentimentalism helped it find an audience. The novel has been adapted for radio and opera and as a graphic novel. A film version, titled A Cock and Bull Story, is a metafictional film about the difficulty of adapting Tristram Shandy for the screen.

This guide refers to the 1998 Oxford University Press edition.

Plot Summary

Rather than beginning at birth or childhood, narrator Tristram Shandy begins his life story at the moment of his conception. In the first few chapters, Tristram introduces the audience to the characters who will be pivotal figures during his birth and life. His father, Walter Shandy, is overbearing and preoccupied with philosophical and pseudo-scientific hypotheses, most notably with the importance of names and noses. His mother, Elizabeth Shandy, is the exact opposite of Walter in temperament. She responds to her husband’s rants passively to not inflame him further. Tristram’s Uncle Toby is a war veteran who suffered a grievous wound to his groin area. Though nonviolent by nature, Uncle Toby obsesses over military history and tactics. Other characters introduced at the beginning include Dr. Slop, the local physician; an unnamed female midwife who delivers Tristram at Elizabeth’s insistence; Yorick, a witty local parson and family friend; and Toby’s friend and subordinate, Trim. The Shandy family also has servants named Susannah and Obadiah. Tristram spends so much time introducing these characters that he is distracted from describing the moment of his birth.

Tristram switches his attention to Uncle Toby, describing his war record and the wound to his groin. The narration also flashes back to the day of Tristram’s birth. Despite his wife’s complaints, Walter insists that Dr. Slop serves as a backup to the female midwife. Dr. Slop fancies himself a forward-thinking doctor, having a newly invented pair of forceps designed to grasp the newborn baby by their head. Once again, Tristram is too distracted to describe the birth itself, only the drama surrounding it.

Dr. Slop displays the forceps by using them on Uncle Toby’s hand. Much to everyone’s distress, the forceps rip Toby’s skin off. However, before Walter and Toby can protest, the midwife calls Dr. Slop for assistance. With the situation seemingly out of their control, Walter and Toby take naps. They are awakened, however, by mechanical sounds emanating from the kitchen. They learn from Trim that Dr. Slop’s dreaded forceps have caused significant damage to newborn Tristram’s nose and that Dr. Slop is now making a synthetic nose bridge for young Tristram in the kitchen. As is his way in times of crisis, Walter—rather than doing anything to help the situation—launches into a detailed, academic lecture on the significance of noses.

Walter learns from Susannah that the birth was very hard on young Tristram and that the boy may not survive. Walter calls Parson Yorick so the baby can be baptized. However, Susannah must be the one to relay the name Walter has chosen. Walter chooses the name Trismegistus, which means “thrice great,” but Susannah struggles with the pronunciation. Unfortunately for Walter, the baby is baptized as Tristram, the name he hates above all others. Walter asks Yorick about changing a baby’s name after baptism. Tristram, Walter argues, is the weakest of all possible names, unlike Trismegistus, which is the name of a mystic Walter adores. Such a comparatively trivial concern is put into perspective when Walter learns that his eldest son, Bobby, has died in London while away at school.

The narrative moves ahead significantly, focusing on Walter’s efforts to formulate a superior education plan for young Tristram, who is now five years old. Unfortunately, Walter spends all his time devising his plan instead of giving Tristram any kind of education at all. Tristram’s poor fortune continues when the young boy is accidentally circumcised by a falling window. Tristram had been urinating out the window because Susannah could not find an empty chamber pot. She and Dr. Slop scramble to assess Tristram’s injuries and bandage his wound as Walter debates his son’s education with Toby. When Dr. Slop finally tells Walter what has happened, he exaggerates the extent of Tristram’s injuries. To compensate for the damage to his son’s body and reputation, Walter insists that Tristram start wearing trousers earlier than most children do.

In Volume 7, the narrative shifts to the present day. Tristram explains that he is on a ship heading for Europe in search of a climate that will improve his declining health. He plans to write two volumes of his autobiography per year, but he feels Death catching up with him and fears that he will not be able to finish before he dies. He describes his travels through France, detailing his impressions of each city he passes through.

In Volumes 8 and 9, Tristram returns to the past to focus on the affair between Toby and his neighbor, Widow Wadman. Walter, Elizabeth, and Tristram are all spies on Toby and the Widow as they flirt. The Widow has fallen for Toby, but she is anxious that his war wound has rendered him unable to perform sexually. She tries to get Toby to tell her the exact location of his wound, but he keeps mistaking her innuendoes for questions about the full-scale model battlefield Toby has built in the garden of the Shandy estate. Toby and Trim launch a military-style operation to win Widow Wadman’s heart as the family watches on. The novel ends where it began—before Tristram’s birth—with Parson Yorick declaring that it is a story of “[a] COCK and a BULL […] And one of the best of its kind, I ever heard” (539).