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Tristram Shandy

Tristram asserts that the digressions in his story build characters indirectly and advance the story subtly. However, the main reason for them is that they add color and interest to the story, making...

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Tristram Shandy

In Tristram Shandy, Tristram defines a hobby horse in chapter 24 of book 1 as a key to understanding a person's soul. He will draw his Uncle Toby's character from his hobby-horse because he believes...

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Tristram Shandy

In Tristram Shandy, the novel ends with Yorick's statement that this is "a cock and bull" story. This refers both to a story just being told which is literally about a bull's cock, but also to the...

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Tristram Shandy

The sermon episode in Tristam Shandy functions to offer Sterne's definition of human decency. Such decency is not based on conscience, which can easily deceive us, but on treating others with...

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Tristram Shandy

Tristram Shandy refers to the progressive movement as the quality that his story shares with all others, a simple progression from beginning to end. The digressive movement, however, is the one that...

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Tristram Shandy

The connections between "Tristram Shandy" and Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding involve a critique of Locke's theories of association. Sterne references Locke to highlight that many do...

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Tristram Shandy

The opening chapters of Tristram Shandy prepare us for the distinctive trait of Walter Shandy's eccentric theorizing by informing us of his idea that Tristram turned out to be odd because his...

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Tristram Shandy

In Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, the reader plays a crucial role in constructing textual meaning. The narrator engages directly with the reader, turning the reading experience into a...

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