The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman · Chapter
Chapter XLIII explained
Walter Shandy paces the room, then sits to finish a chapter on auxiliary verbs, demonstrating how their varied tenses, questions, negatives, affirmatives, and hypotheticals can draw endless conceptions from any idea.
What happens
Walter Shandy paces the room, then sits to finish a chapter on auxiliary verbs, demonstrating how their varied tenses, questions, negatives, affirmatives, and hypotheticals can draw endless conceptions from any idea. He uses the example of a white bear to quiz Corporal Trim, who has never seen one, prompting a debate with Uncle Toby about the possibility of discoursing on something unseen.
Themes in this chapter
Knowledge and Philosophy
Walter's discourse on auxiliary verbs and the white bear exemplifies the philosophical inquiry into how knowledge is constructed from simple ideas through language and hypothetical reasoning.
The Absurdity of Systems
The elaborate, almost comical breakdown of verb tenses and questions about a white bear highlights the absurdity of systematic attempts to derive comprehensive knowledge from trivial or absent experiences.
Characters to notice
- Walter Shandy
My father, who takes a turn across the room, sits down, and finishes the chapter on auxiliary verbs, using the white bear example to illustrate his philosophical method.
- Uncle Toby
Queries his brother Walter about how Trim can discourse on a white bear without having seen one, showing his literal-mindedness.
- Corporal Trim
Stands at the back of Walter's chair and replies that he has never seen a white bear, becoming the subject of Walter's hypothetical exercise.
Key passages
“Now, by the right use and application of these, continued my father, in which a child's memory should be exercised, there is no one idea can enter his brain, how barren soever, but a magazine of conceptions and conclusions may be drawn forth from it.”
Walter argues that if a child is trained to properly use auxiliary verbs and their variations, even the simplest idea can yield a wealth of insights and deductions.
Highlights Walter's pedagogical theory that language training unlocks latent knowledge from any concept.
“A white bear! Very well. Have I ever seen one? Might I ever have seen one? Am I ever to see one? Ought I ever to have seen one? Or can I ever see one? Would I had seen a white bear! (for how can I imagine it?) If I should see a white bear, what would I say? If I should never see a white bear, what then?”
Walter runs through a series of questions about a white bear to demonstrate how the auxiliary verbs can generate a full inquiry into existence, possibility, obligation, and hypothetical scenarios.
Illustrates Walter's method of using grammatical forms to explore all facets of an idea, even one as absurd as a white bear.