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Saadhya Mohan
2-A
Roll no. 12

ASSIGNMENT – 18TH CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE

The theme of hobby-horses in Tristram Shandy lends a certain thematic
continuity to an otherwise digressive and non-linear text. Comment.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is an experiment novel

written by Laurence Sterne, published in nine volumes from 1759 to 1767.
Wildly experimental for its time, Tristram Shandy seems almost a modern
avant-garde novel. Narrated by Shandy, the story begins at the moment of
his conception and diverts into endless digressions, interruptions, stories-
within-stories, and other narrative devices. The focus shifts from the fortunes
of the hero himself to the nature of his family, environment, and heredity, and
also to the style of writing itself. The novel, in its acute observation of
character, is touted to have provided a keen insight into human nature.
The ‘hobby-horse’ is one of the primary narrative devices that Tristram-Sterne
uses in the novel. A tool to chalk out various characters and their peculiarities,
the term is a precursor to the modern, more commonly understood ‘hobby.’
The hobby-horse was a traditional figure accompanying the Morris dance,
“whisking and frisking in the luxury of nonsense.” The hobby-horse a man
chooses and the way he rides it are determined by his individuality, while his
individuality is highlighted by his hobby-horse. Sterne postulates “A man and
his Hobby-Horse, tho’ I cannot say they act and re-act exactly after the same
manner in which the soul and body do upon each other: Yet doubtless there is
a communication between them of some kind…it so happens, that the body of
the rider is at length fill’d as full of Hobby-Horsical matter as it can hold; - so
that if you are able to give but a clear description of the nature of the one, you
may form a pretty exact notion of the genius and character of the other.”
In one of his letters, Sterne writes “The ruleing passion et les egaremens du
coeur, are the very things which mark…and…distinguish a man’s character; in
which I would as soon leave out a man’s head as his hobby-horse.” The ruling
passion that determines one’s personality for Sterne is a pervasive device used
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in the novel – it stimulates activity in the lives of the characters, and the
collision of various hobby-horses brings the conflict and humour in the novel.
Tristram Shandy decides to draw the character of his uncle Toby “by no
mechanical help whatever” but from his uncle’s hobby-horse, sure that “there
is no instrument so fit to draw such a thing with, as that which I
have pitch’d upon.” Battestin suggests that the fact that Tristram arrives to this
decision after mentioning at the beginning of the same chapter ‘Momus’s
glass’ – a mythical device that could help to reveal the heart of a man – is
rather significant: “had the aid glass been there set up,” Tristram writes,
“nothing more would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man’s
character.” But since such aid is not available, the recourse to the hobby-horse
could be seen as an attempt to substitute an impossible Momus’s glass.
Tristram describes in detail the development and nature of Toby’s monomania,
which begins as he’s convalescing from a wound on the groin that he received
at the siege of Namur. During this period, Toby receives many visitors, and to
each one he must re-tell the painful tale of his injury. To help him in the
narration, he takes out a map of Namur to pinpoint the exact location where
the accident happened. The map sparks Toby’s interest in military architecture,
and from hereon, his obsession with fortifications is infused throughout the
novel. He views the world through the lens of his hobby-horse – when Widow
Wadman asks him to let her place her finger on the exact place where he
received the wound (meaning his groin), he places her finger on the location of
the accident on the map of Namur.
Walter’s hobby-horse, on the other hand, entails an obsession with theories
and scholastic works; and a penchant for developing and propounding
hypotheses of his own, often based on syllogistic thinking. Unlike his
somewhat sentimental brother, Walter operates solely on reason. Sterne
brings out this tendency of Walter at many important moments throughout
the novel, the foremost being Tristram’s birth. Walter believes that a man’s
name determines the course of his life and therefore categories names as
good, bad or neutral. He wishes to name his son Trismegistus for this reason,
and when he hears that his child may not survive, he reacts not with emotion
but with reason, hesitating whether to waste a good name on what may be a
lost cause. Walter has many such theories – about noses, being born head-
first, and so on. His penchant also becomes a subject for the narrator’s ridicule
at some points, such as when he refers to the scholarly history of breeches in
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order to decide what material should be used to stitch them. His approbation
of theoretics reaches its acme when he undertakes the project to develop a
system for his son’s education, which he names Tristrapaedia.
It can be noted that like his father, Tristram too, has a habit of postulating. He
proposes that the English are a people with varied individual nature due to the
diversity in climate they experience. He believes that the animal spirits present
at time of conception strongly determine the child’s personality.
Amrit Sen opines that characters like Walter Shandy or Uncle Toby are not fully
realised characters but representations of humours or hobby-horses. He
suggests that in using this term, Sterne classifies Walter and Toby as attitudes
rather than characters – Walter as the “philosophus gloriousus” and Toby as
the “sentimental naïve.” Yet, in their gestures, in their physical descriptions,
they are individuals who are present in the narrative. Sterne seems to imbue
them with ambivalence – they are real human beings and personae at the
same time.
Tristram too, has a distinct hobby-horse of his own: "my hobby-horse, if you
recollect a little, is no way a vicious beast; he has scarce one hair or lineament
of the ass about him—'Tis the sporting little filly-folly which carries you out for
the present hour" – in other words – it is the very work that one is reading. His
preoccupation consists of developing a writing style unique to himself, of
telling his story in a way that is inimitably his own. His penchant for diversions
is evident, and the novel finds it progression in digression rather than
chronology. A tendency for double entendre and humour in telling his story
can also be distinguished.
The author’s self-reflexive, odd writing style is a primary concern in the novel
and is discussed at length recurrently in its course. In fact, as suggested, the
novel in its entirety can be viewed as Tristram’s hobby-horse. Toby and
Walter’s conversations and activities form another major chunk of the
narrative space, all of which are characterised by and revolve around their
hobby-horses.
Thus, in the novel, the hobby-horse is a universal principle from which no one
escapes. Even minor characters are identified and characterised by their
hobby-horses. Dr. Slop is ridiculed for his obsession with forceps as the
solution to everything. Corporal Trim, is described as one who “lov’d to advise,
or rather to hear himself talk…set his tongue a-going, you had no hold of him.”
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Parson Yorick has a tendency for humorous interjections and a concomitant

dislike for gravity. Widow Wadman is distinguished by her overtly sexual
manner, which results in her quest to find a second husband who can satisfy
her wishes unlike the first one. In fact, Mrs. Shandy is the only significant
character who is characterised not by a hobby-horse, but by the lack of it.
There is not much we know about her or her opinions and activities, and
Tristram sticks to his claim that women in his family have no personalities.
John Freeman remarks “In Tristram Shandy, the linear, clockwork regularity is
fractured in the narrative discourse by digression, deferral, and interruption.”
Sharon Cadman Selig finds it to be “a text so clearly chaotic.” The broken
narration and a lack of discernible purpose contributes to the fragmented,
confusing nature of the text. In this context, it can be argued that the theme of
hobby-horses lends a certain thematic continuity to an otherwise non-linear
text. Much of the narrative revolves around the descriptions of characters and
their activities, which are determined by their hobby-horses. Even the minor
characters have significant ruling passions that guide their role in the novel.
Moreover, the author himself suggests that the entire novel is to be
understood as his hobby-horsical outlet. Thus, in a non-chronological, non-
generic, atypical text, the recurrent trope of hobby-horses is what the reader
holds as a key to navigate the text and its characters.