The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman · Chapter
Chapter XIV explained
Tristram reflects on the difficulties of writing a history, using his search through his mother's marriage settlement as an example of the digressions and hindrances that slow his narrative.
What happens
Tristram reflects on the difficulties of writing a history, using his search through his mother's marriage settlement as an example of the digressions and hindrances that slow his narrative. He resolves to proceed leisurely, publishing two volumes of his life each year.
Themes in this chapter
Digression and Narrative Form
Tristram explicitly discusses the inevitability of digressions in writing history, using his own narrative as an example of the challenges of staying on a straight path.
Time and Mortality
Tristram notes that after six weeks of writing, he has not yet been born, highlighting the slow pace of his narrative and the passage of time.
Characters to notice
- Tristram Shandy
The narrator and historian, who describes his struggles with digressions and his plan to write and publish two volumes per year.
- Mrs. Shandy
Her marriage settlement is the document Tristram examines, leading to his reflections on historical writing.
- Walter Shandy
Implied as the other party in the marriage settlement mentioned.
Key passages
“Upon looking into my motherвАЩs marriage-settlement, in order to satisfy myself and reader in a point necessary to be cleared up, before we could proceed any farther in this history;вБ†вАФI had the good fortune to pop upon the very thing I wanted before I had read a day and a half straight forwards,вБ†вАФit might have taken me up a month;вБ†вАФwhich shows plainly, that when a man sits down to write a history,вБ†вАФthough it be but the history of Jack Hickathrift or Tom Thumb , he knows no more than his heels what lets and confounded hindrances he is to meet with in his way,вБ†вАФor what a dance he may be led, by one excursion or another, before all is over.”
While examining his mother's marriage settlement to clarify a necessary point, Tristram finds what he needs quickly, but reflects that writing a history—even a simple one—is full of unexpected obstacles and digressions.
Tristram uses his own experience to illustrate the unpredictable nature of historical writing.
“These unforeseen stoppages, which I own I had no conception of when I first set out;вБ†вАФbut which, I am convinced now, will rather increase than diminish as I advance,вБ†вАФhave struck out a hint which I am resolved to follow;вБ†вЄЇвБ†and that is,вБ†вАФnot to be in a hurry; but to go on leisurely, writing and publishing two volumes of my life every year;вБ†вЄЇвБ†which, if I am suffered to go on quietly, and can make a tolerable bargain with my bookseller, I shall continue to do as long as I live.”
Tristram decides to embrace the delays and proceed slowly, planning to write and publish two volumes of his life annually for as long as he lives.
This passage reveals Tristram's resolution to adopt a leisurely pace for his autobiographical project.