Characters Discussed
Tristram Shandy
Tristram Shandy, the narrator and ostensible hero of this literary farrago devoted to some details of his early life, his father’s opinions and eccentricities, his uncle’s passion for the reenactment of Marlborough’s military campaigns, and assorted oddities of mind and conduct. His mother having incurred some time before the expense of a needless trip to London for a lying-in, Tristram, according to the terms of his parents’ marriage contract, is born at Shandy Hall on November 5, 1718. Various misfortunes befall him early in life: a broken nose, crushed by the doctor’s forceps at birth; the wrong name, Tristram instead of Trismegistus, when he is christened by a stupid young curate; and the loss of his member, a heavy sash having fallen while he was relieving himself through an open window. Although he is crushed by these irreparable incidents of damage, his father still insists that the boy have a proper education, and to this end Mr. Shandy writes a “Tristra-paedia” in imitation of the “Cyro-paedia” designed for the training of Cyrus the Great, as set forth in the pages of Xenophon. Except for a few scattered hints, the reader learns almost nothing about Tristram’s later life. Sterne devotes most of the novel to reporting humorous incidents and the sayings of the other characters.
Walter Shandy
Walter Shandy, Tristram’s father, a crotchety retired turkey merchant who possesses an immense stock of obscure information acquired by reading old books collected by his ancestors. As the result of his reading, he takes delight in lengthy discussions on unimportant topics. A man of acute sensibilities, alert to the minor pricks and vexations of life, he has developed a droll but sharp manner of peevishness, but he is so open and generous in all other ways that his friends are seldom offended by his sharpness of tongue. He suffers from sciatica as well as loquacity.
Mrs. Shandy
Mrs. Shandy, a good-natured but rather stupid woman. Typical is her interruption of the moment of Tristram’s conception on the first Sunday of March, 1718, to ask her husband if he has remembered to wind the clock. “I dare say” and “I suppose not” in response to Mr. Shandy are her most brilliant remarks in conversation.
Toby Shandy
Toby Shandy, called My Uncle Toby, a retired army captain who had been wounded in the groin during the siege of Namur in 1698. Now retired to the country, he spends most of his time amid a large and complicated series of miniature fortifications and military emplacements on the bowling green behind Shandy Hall. There he follows with all the interest and enthusiasm of actual conflict the military campaigns of the duke of Marlborough on the Continent. Occasionally forced into conversations with his brother, as on the night of Tristram’s birth, he escapes the flood of Mr. Shandy’s discourse by whistling “Lillibullero” to himself. Completely innocent on the subjects of women and sex, he is pursued by a neighbor, the Widow Wadman, whose intentions are matrimonial and whose campaign on the old soldier’s heart is as strategically planned as his own miniature battles.
Widow Wadman
Widow Wadman, a buxom woman who lays siege to Uncle Toby’s bachelor life and begs him to show her the exact spot where he was wounded. Eventually, he indicates on a map the location of Namur. Her question kills her chance of a proposal when Corporal Trim tells his embarrassed master what the widow really wants to know.
Corporal Trim
Corporal Trim, the faithful and loquacious servant of Uncle Toby. He helps his master enact mimic battles on the bowling green.
Susannah
(This entire section contains 1080 words.)
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Susannah
Susannah, a vain and careless maid. Supposed to tell the curate to christen the sickly baby Trismegistus, after the minor philosopher admired by Mr. Shandy, she arrives on the scene so out of breath that she can say only that the name is Tris-something, and the curate decides that the child is to be called Tristram. He is pleased because that is his own name.
Parson Yorick
Parson Yorick, a mercurial and eccentric clergyman completely innocent of the ways of the wicked world. He is in the habit of speaking his mind plainly, often to the discomfiture or resentment of the man toward whom his remarks are directed. Once a lover of fine horses, he rides about the countryside on a nag that would disgrace Don Quixote. The reason is that his good horses were always spavined or wind-broken by anxious fathers who borrowed the animals to ride for a midwife.
Dr. Slop
Dr. Slop, a squat, bungling country doctor, the author of a book on midwifery. For a fee of five guineas, this “man-midwife” sits in the back parlor of Shandy Hall and listens to Mr. Shandy hold forth on various topics, including a treatise on oaths, while a midwife is attending Mrs. Shandy upstairs. When he is called in to assist at the birth, he permanently flattens Tristram’s nose with his forceps.
Obadiah
Obadiah, the outdoors servant at Shandy Hall, an awkward, good-natured fellow.
Jonathan
Jonathan, Mr. Shandy’s dull-witted coachman.
Le Fever
Le Fever, a poor lieutenant who falls sick while traveling to rejoin his regiment in Flanders. When Corporal Trim, who has visited the dying man at the village inn, reports to Uncle Toby that the poor fellow will never march again, the old soldier is so moved that he swears one of his rare oaths while declaring that Le Fever shall not die. The recording angel, making a note of the oath, drops a tear on the word and blots it out forever.
Tom
Tom, Corporal Trim’s brother, who marries the widow of a Jew in Lisbon.
A Negress
A Negress, a friend of Tom Trim, who motivates a discussion on slavery.
Mrs. Bridget
Mrs. Bridget, Widow Wadman’s maid, ambitious to marry Corporal Trim.
Eugenius
Eugenius, the friend and adviser of Parson Yorick. He witnesses the clergyman’s dying moments.
Master Bobby Shandy
Master Bobby Shandy, Tristram’s older brother, whose death at an early age is reported. His sudden death gives Corporal Trim a good opportunity to provide the servants of Shandy Hall with a dramatic illustration—he drops his hat—of human mortality, the fact that a person can be here one moment and gone the next. Trim’s action causes Susannah, who has been thinking of the gown that may become hers when her mistress goes into mourning, to burst into tears.
