Tristram's
mother reveals a voyeuristic curiosity in her desire to watch through
the keyhole as Uncle Toby makes his march for Widow Wadman's heart.
Corporal Trim has had some difficulty in getting Toby's ragged clothing
and old wig tidied up; fortunately, Tristram tells us, Toby's goodness
of heart shines forth in his countenance to such a degree that he looks
good in anything. The advance begins, but then Toby and Trim detain
themselves outside Mrs. Wadman's door while Trim tells of his brother
Tom, who married a widowed Jewish sausage-maker in Lisbon and was taken
into custody by the Inquisition. Walter and Mrs. Shandy watch
impatiently during this lengthy delay.
The author pauses to review what
he has
written, deciding that "upon this page and the five following, a good
deal of heterogeneous matter [must] be inserted, to keep up that just
balance betwixt wisdom and folly, without which a book would not hold
together a single year." He then expostulates for several chapters on
the nature of his writing, defending himself in particular against
charges of indecency. As evidence for the cleanness of his writing he
submits his extensive laundry bills. Tristram plans a digression, and
then realizes that in talking about it he has actually committed it.
Marveling at this fact, he returns to Uncle Toby.
Mrs. Wadman
and Bridget wait inside, poised for the knock at the door. Toby has a
moment of nervous hesitation, but before he can tell Trim to wait,
"Trim let fall the rapper." They enter the house, and two blank pages
appear in the place of the next two chapters. We rejoin the action in
the midst of a suggestive conversation in which Toby offers to let
Widow Wadman see and touch the place where his groin was wounded.
Tristram cites
Slawkenbergius on how a woman chooses her husband and discusses Mrs.
Wadman's reservations about Uncle Toby's "fitness for the marriage
state"--which, he assures us, was perfectly fine in spite of the
wounded groin. Bridget has engaged herself to find out the details of
the injury on her mistress's behalf, resolving to be as friendly with
Trim as necessary in order to secure that vital information.
Tristram balks
just at the moment of arriving at "the choicest morsel of what I had to
offer to the world," suddenly falling into doubt about his literary
powers. He invokes the spirit of Cervantes to aid him, and is reminded
then of his travels through France and Italy. Anguished to realize that
nobody else will appreciate the necessity of leaving chapters 18 and 19
blank until chapter 25 is completed, he voices again his favorite plea
to the world "to let people tell their stories their own way." He then
explains the details of what transpires in those omitted pages. Toby
declares his love, and Widow Wadman, after an awkward pause, turns the
conversation to the subject of children. Toby, who does not understand
the motive behind her questioning, covers his bafflement by proposing
marriage. Back in chapter 26, Widow Wadman interrogates Toby about his
wound, and he admires the "humanity" of her solicitude. When she asks
where, exactly, he received the blow, he sends for the map of Namur and
sets her finger on the very place.
Trim then
retrieves the map and makes the same geographical explanation to
Bridget. She cuts to the chase, telling him bluntly the rumor she has
heard about Toby's impotence; Trim denies the allegation. He
successfully romances Bridget, and for a while the two separate phases
of the campaign continue regularly every afternoon. Trim finally
reveals to his master the true reason behind Widow Wadman's concern for
his injured parts, and Toby is woefully disillusioned. The whole
neighborhood, meanwhile, has learned of their misunderstanding, and
Walter is highly indignant on his brother's behalf. The novel ends with
the story of a cock and a bull.
Commentary
At
the end of the fourth volume Tristram
writes, "The thing I lament is, that things have crowded so in upon me,
that I have not been able to get into that part of my work, towards
which I have all the way looked forwards, with so much earnest desire;
and that is the campaigns, but especially the amours of my uncle Toby."
Tristram finally leads us to the long-promised conclusion of his Uncle
Toby's affair, and at last we learn the reason behind Toby's
much-vaunted modesty.
Toby's
nervousness and innocence is endearing, and the presentation of the
love affair as a battle seems in many ways a more apt use of the
military metaphor than all their fruitless and obsessive hobbies. The
story of Trim's brother Tom and his successful courtship serves in one
way as an inspiration to Toby's efforts. On the other hand, the mention
of the Inquisition leaves a lingering suggestion of the marriage state
as a kind of prison, contributing to Toby's hesitancy. The prison
metaphor certainly also extends to the question of censorship and
hovers over Tristram's digression into the question of indecency in his
writing.
The unhappy
end to the Wadman affair recalls Toby's confession, in Volume 2, that
he understands "nothing at all" about women. His naivete here confirms
that fact, but it also induces a somewhat bleak answer to the implicit
question of what the nature of women actually is. Walter's lecture on
the lustfulness of women, just before the novel ends, is a conclusion
to his unfinished oration on the same topic earlier in the book. Women
seem to bear the brunt of blame and contempt here, especially in light
of the attention devoted earlier in the volume to cataloguing Mrs.
Shandy's faults. Trim actually makes a more sympathetic statement when
he suggests that women are often "put upon...'to please others more
than themselves.'" Walter's final speech is so out of tune with the
playful attitude the book as a whole takes toward sexuality that we
cannot imagine the author endorsing such a view. Where women fit into
Sterne's intricate treatment of sexuality and gender remains a
complicated question.
The issues of
fertility, sterility, and sexuality dominate the closing chapters,
bringing the focus back to the same set of concerns with which the book
began. The reference to Walter's ritualized first-Sunday-of-the-month
activities creates another satisfying symmetry. The final chapter
brings together all the major characters to listen to one last
cock-and-bull story, effecting a self-ironical reprise that serves as
the author's farewell.
© "Section 9"
Santos, Matilda.
SparkNote on Tristram Shandy.
1 Nov. 2008
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/tristram/section9.rhtml