Words and names play a powerful role in Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. In Volumes I, II, and IV, language and the effect words have on the story create an important theme, which connects the three books together. Digressions inside these books build on each other. This allows Sterne to draw the reader’s attention to the problems words create, as well as the importance of original phrasing. Names and word choice, as well as the power they possess, fill these Volumes, through Tristram’s baptism and Mr. Shandy’s hobby-horse to rambling text and precise word choice. Sterne uses Slawkenbergius’s Tale as well as passages in French to reveal to the reader the difference between original languages and translations. He also considers omission using Slawkenbergius’s Tale. This corresponds with Mr. Shandy preventing Toby from finishing a sentence and Sterne’s digression considering this.
Tristram’s name is a thread inside the novel’s plot, and ultimately becomes a source of character development and commentary. Sterne’s account of Tirstram’s name in Volume IV emphasizes the significance of names, which he initially introduced in Volume I. This emphasis allows him use names to comment on the control words have on an individual. From birth, Tristram is doomed by his name, and its power over him and Mr. Shandy is fundamental to the way Sterne approaches words. In Volume I, Sterne briefly mentions Tristram’s father’s “hypothesis of Christian names” and goes into detail about his “strongest likings and dislikings of certain names” (Sterne 39, 47). He promises to explain why his name is Tristram, because his father loathes it, however, the reader does not receive the explanation until Volume IV. Mr. Shandy is controlled by names, they are his...
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The words an author chooses are fundamental to the novel, especially when that author explicitly calls attention to language or translation. Sterne’s digressions and conversation with language forces the reader to consider the power and influence words have over individuals. The relationship words have with the reader’s interpretation of the text is crucial to these Volumes of Tristram Shandy. Through understanding why Sterne calls attention to words, we can understand his motives in other pieces of the text. Although the ways he develops this idea differ, they all fundamentally focus on the power of words. His diversions consider the various aspects of this power, and ultimately coincide with each other in a cohesive view on the importance of language.
Works Cited
Sterne, Laurence, and Howard Anderson. Tristram Shandy. New York: W.W. Norton &, 1980. Print.
...onally transposing indirect to direct quotation, putting words into people mouths and blending two separate eye witness's accounts. How can one read a novel for knowledge gaining purposes when the structure appears so flawed? The use of modern and old English are combined in the sentence structure. The highly academic vocabulary not only is confusing, but breaks the flow of the book when that is the evident purpose for the format of the book. The confusing order in which Starkey retells events and the ineffective and useless information that is put in for building character personalities.
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