- Is Walter Shandy depresssed about Bobby's death? He seems drained a lot throughout.
- Mr. Shandy appears very well-read of classic philosophers. He seems depressed over Bobby's death, but I feel like he is still depressed, outside of his son's death.
- Whiskers reminds me of my linguistics class, which talked about how words are arbitrary and we assign meaning to them. All words could mean anything, but in this scenario it means something vulgar. Is Sterne just ahead of his time, pointing out the sign/signifier that I learned in 301?
- Why doesn't he adequately explain anything? Like the fiddle metaphor, how is one supposed to get to that? And why can't he describe his accidental circumcision, so I could actually read that information correctly. He has 150 pages of additional notes. Why?
And from a blog thread below:
- Somebody mentioned that there was a lot to say about eavesdropping despite a short build-up to Mrs. Shandy's accusation of an affair on Walter's part. I think that in truth the importance of this section is to illustrate how conversations take place between different people and in different places of the household. The emphasis is on eavesdropping and misunderstandings and the way that misunderstandings might influence worldview.
- Mrs. Shandy...is an after-thought in the family hierarchy. It is really sad that no one thought to inform her that Bobby died. She just seems very involuntary and loopy as a mother. In an odd way Uncle Toby is more involved in the family and has a higher role than the mother. His has an integral part of the family, and in Tristam's narrative because he is the source of most of Tristam's information about his childhood.
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5 comments:
In reference to the comment regarding Whiskers, I think it is entirely possible Sterne is utilizing this perspective. Doing so fits well within his mode of operation for the book, and I think he almost would enjoy the exercise of assigning a word to an object just for fun. It fits his style of humor and for all I know he implements this tactic in another section(s) of the novel. I think here he just may be interested in using the word 'whiskers' for what it is. It also is used in conjunction with the term 'nose' and I tend to feel that the word here for 'nose' is not being used to represent something else.
I think part of the reason not much is explained is due to at least a couple factors. One thought simply could be that he just is following the mantra of 'writing as a process' and seeks to move along the story as much as possible. Another thought (similar to the one just mentioned) would be to consider the the mindset in which Sterne settles himself while writing this novel. It is fairly easy to suggest most authors (especially of this time) do not write in this mode and therefore do not record their thoughts on the page via this particular thought process. To me, part of what this mindset entails is giving the reader the clues he/she needs in order to figure out to what Sterne is referring and not stating it explicitly and in such an obviously discernible manner. But again, this perspective may circle back to the humor of the work in itself anyway.
I certainly agree with the previous comment that Sterne's failure to properly explain anything is closely related to the idea of "writing as a process." Northrop Frye's essay puts it most eloquently, "When we turn to 'Tristram Shandy' we not only read the book but watch the author at work writing it: at any moment the house of Walter Shandy may vanish and be replaced by the author's study. This does break the illusion, or would if there were any illusion to break, but here we are not being led into a story, but into the process of writing a story: we wonder, not what is coming next, but what the author will think of next" (145). The chapters on "whiskers" and "the fiddle" (regardless of whether or not we know exactly what they mean), serve as perfect examples of that; we understand that their positioning in the novel does not drive the plot, but, all the same, we're still intrigued (and Frye's argument that "Tristram Shandy" is more of a process rather than plot, also helps us answer why it's okay to read this novel out of order). It may seem rather shocking to us as English majors that chapters in a novel aren't meant to be analysed for a greater significance, but perhaps in the case of "Tristram Shandy" there is no other meaning apart from the one Frye has painted for us.
As was mentioned in class on Wednesday, Sterne's main goal in directly addressing us as readers and including nonsensical chapters and the "censoring" of words may simply be to attract our attention, to appeal to our senses of curiosity. Clearly they're striking up discussion now and have in the past and perhaps will continue to do so, so why not include them?
Reading "Tristram Shandy" on my own, and I'm sure others share a similar opinion, is quite a frustrating process; however, once I get to class and am "let in on Sterne's jokes," the understanding of it becomes quite interesting (and almost fun). Really, at the heart of this novel, in my opinion, is Sterne's desire to play with us, to have a relationship with us. He wishes to get us to really think about a chapter, or a word, or a concept, come up with a string of possible interpretations, and ultimately leave us wondering if it means anything at all (which is HAS to, right, English majors? It's not just there for nothing!). And all the while, he allows us to admire his ability to playfully manipulate language, as well as his presentation of the idea that words may mean hundreds of things, or nothing at all (again emphasizing what a writer is capable of; what precisely his "process" is and how much control of it he possesses). And as difficult as that may be for over-analyzing literature students like ourselves to accept, maybe that's really just how it is.
Classmates's Thoughts: Mr. Shandy appears very well-read of classic philosophers. He seems depressed over Bobby's death, but I feel like he is still depressed, outside of his son's death.
I would definitely agree that Mr. Shandy is deeply upset about losing his son, however I also get the vibe that something else is bothering him, but I don't think Tristram has made aware of the other issue at this point in our reading. On page 330 we get a sense of what Mr. Shandy was like before Bobby's death and it seems that he was a very happy and caring man:
"Now I pity the captain the most of any on in the family...my poor master will keep it all in silence to himself. I like to hear Trim's stories about the captain - He is a kindly-hearted gentleman...and a brave a one too. There never was a better officer in the king's army - or a better man in God's world...he has a heart as soft as a child for other people. - He would not hurt a chicken."
My guess is that Mr. Shandy's problems really escalate after Bobby's death because it gets to a point on page 333 where Tristram explains that his father does not handle stress properly and takes pity on himself and "wishes himself dead; -sometimes worse." If Mr. Shandy is depressed outside of his son's death, I'm not sure what the situation is that's troubling him. But I found it very interesting how Mr. Shandy copes with tragic events, and in the case of his Bobby's death, Mr. Shandy dives into writing a "system of education" for Tristram. The fact that it takes him three years just to advance "almost into the middle of his work" suggests maybe that he still has not recovered from the sadness over the loss of Bobby and is not ready to eliminate the one thing which has occupied his mind.
While I find this story bizarre and confusing, I am interested in discovering what will come next. I wonder how things will progress with Mr. Shandy and if he will ever snap out of this depression.
Classmate's comment: "Mrs. Shandy is an after-thought in the family hierarchy. It is really sad that no one thought to inform her that Bobby died. She just seems very involuntary and loopy as a mother. In an odd way Uncle Toby is more involved in the family and has a higher role than the mother..."
I think this is a really astute comment, and one that I hadn't really thought of before in this particular light. Uncle Toby seems to replace Mrs. Shandy as Mr. Shandy's confidant; Mrs. Shandy appears as an "afterthought" because that is exactly what she is to Mr. Shandy. If he remembers to have sex with her once a month based on the fact that he also rewinds the clocks on that same day, then it doesn't appear that she means very much to him.
In fact, Sterne really doesn't offer much (in terms of the passages we've read for class) on notions of romantic love; sure he inserts various sexual innuendos but doesn't really say anything on the relationships between men and women. However, he does appear to put a lot of weight on relationships between men: Uncle Toby and Mr. Shandy are a perfect example. I'm not really sure what the significance of this focus on homosocial bonding implies, but I think its interesting to point out.
Classmate's Thought: Why doesn't he adequately explain anything? Like the fiddle metaphor, how is one supposed to get to that? And why can't he describe his accidental circumcision, so I could actually read that information correctly. He has 150 pages of additional notes. Why?
I am sort of approaching the novel as a sort of diary that "Shandy" kept to record his musings, recollections, and ideas. I think he doesn't explain things because he is writing for himself. He doesn't need to say he was circumcised because he remembers it happening. The notes at the end, then, would be what Shandy realized his reader would not understand immediately, so he added them before publication. This is easier than re-writing pages and pages of the novel to fit in all the background information that was left out originally.
That said, Shandy isn't a real person, but a fictional character created by Sterne. This complicates my theory a bit. I think Sterne wrote the novel in this way to inspire his reader to draw connections and think more independently than if he or she were to just be given all the information straight away. And Shandy becomes more believable because he is forgetful and his thoughts are scrambled. It looks to the reader as if someone picked up Shandy's diary, added some notes to explain vague or incomplete thoughts, and published it.
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