The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

One of the most prominent influences on Tristram’s character is his father, Walter. As a retired businessman, Walter spends his time in the Shandy country home, indulging in his primary hobbyhorse, researching his various intellectual obsessions. Walter is one of the characters who best represents Association, Digression, and the Nature of Memory: Anytime he encounters something that reminds him of one of his pet theories, such as names or noses, he must deliver a lecture on it or go to his library to conduct further research, whether or not it is an appropriate time for such activities. The way his associations dictate his behavior and emotions illustrates Locke’s theories about the association of ideas.

Though Walter’s obsessions and digressions are often silly or absurd, they have serious consequences. He is so enraptured by abstract intellectual discussion that he frequently loses touch with reality. He loves to argue about the best way in which to do something, but he has almost no interest in actually doing the thing itself. Tristram’s childhood relationship with his father epitomizes this problem. Walter spends more time writing his Trista-paedia, in which he outlines the ideal way in which to raise a son, than he does actually raising his son. Walter obsesses over writing a book about raising a child while ignoring his actual child. Walter’s neglect shapes his son’s identity, though not in the way he would have wanted. Much like Walter, Tristram shows little interest in his actual self. Instead, he builds an outline of his character through his affectionate portrayal of his father. Walter is a profound influence on his son, particularly in the way in which Tristram struggles to engage with his practical self in favor of dealing with the hypothetical abstract self that is not yet born.

Uncle Toby is a pleasant, placid, and naïve man. He was once a soldier, but an injury forced him to retire. The need to explain how the wound was received inspired Toby’s hobbyhorse, a scale model of the battle during which he was wounded that he builds with his servant, Corporal Trim. Toby’s obsession with his model fortifications obscures everything else. He is so driven to recreate every trench and ditch of the battlefield that he has no other real interests in his life. Between his career in the Army and his construction of the model battlefield, for example, Toby has learned nothing about women. He confesses as much to Walter during the birth of Toby’s nephew, Tristram. Toby knows so little about women that many of the sexual innuendos and jokes made by other characters do not register in his mind. More of a concern for Toby, however, is his relationship with Widow Wadman. She spends years attempting to seduce him, only for Toby to genuinely believe that her interest in his model battlefield is sincere, rather than an attempt to spend time with him. When confronted with the reality that a woman may be sexually attracted to him, Toby falls back on what he knows. He and Trim plan a military-style seduction of Widow Wadman that leaves Toby emotionally wounded.

Toby embodies the theme of Sympathy and Benevolence. Though his naivety sometimes causes Toby to misunderstand people, he always feels deep and sincere compassion for them. In Volume 6, Tristram explains that Toby nursed a dying soldier he came across at an inn, taking care of the man as best he could even though he had no prior relationship with him. Toby became the executor of the man’s estate and the adoptive father to his orphaned son. Toby’s kindness extends even to a fly that bothers him one night at dinner; he refuses to swat it, focusing on his fellowship with the insect rather than his annoyance. Toby’s interaction with the fly is so powerful that the scene became emblematic in 18th-century England of true benevolence. Toby’s sympathy and love for all living creatures illustrate why Tristram credits Toby for his own positive traits. When Tristram insists on compassion and understanding for other people’s hobbyhorses, or that everyone should be allowed to tell their story their own way, his benevolence mirrors his uncle’s.