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In the beginning stages of Laurence Sterne’s novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Tristram Shandy describes the events leading up to his birth. After telling readers about the day he was born, Tristram discusses the concept of “fortune” or luck as it relates to his life. According to the word’s footnote, “Fortune” is a Roman goddess. In the part of the novel where Tristram reveals to readers his birthday, Sterne “distinguishes between the pagan idea of Fortune from the Christian concept of Providence” (542) which means the protective care of God or divine direction, control, or guidance (OED, def. 2). Tristram uses the Romans’ personification of the word “fortune” when describing the effect it has had on his life: “I will not wrong her (Fortune) by saying, She has ever made me feel the weight of any great or signal evil;—yet with all the good temper in the world, I affirm it of her, That in every stage of my life … the ungracious Duchess has pelted me with a set of as pitiful misadventures and cross accidents as ever small HERO sustained” (10). By describing fortune as an actual being that causes mishaps in Tristram’s life, Sterne appears to be making the argument that life events are random and happen solely due to good or bad luck. Furthermore, by stating that “fortune” is the cause of Tristram’s problems and not “providence”, Sterne seems to oppose the idea that life events are predetermined by a higher power for a greater purpose.
Sterne supports the argument that life is spontaneous and the result of good or bad luck by making the events in Tristram’s life completely random and coincidental, one of which is his conception. On the very first page of the novel, readers find out that Tristram’s father always winds up the clock before sleeping with Tristram’s mother. However, on the night when they conceive Tristram, Tristram’s father forgets to wind the clock and his wife interrupts him while they are engaging in sexual intercourse (5). In the same way that Tristram’s mother interrupts his father, Tristram frequently interrupts his own telling of stories throughout the novel and struggles to get to the main point of the original topic he discusses. Due to Tristram’s frequent digressions in the novel’s earlier volumes, the story seems to be heading in no particular direction and therefore appears to have no ultimate purpose or underlying meaning. Tristram’s unlucky conception, which caused his frequent digressions, along with the novel’s lack of direction and true meaning further solidifies Sterne’s argument that life and its events are not divinely predetermined nor occur to serve a greater purpose. However, the novel may purposely be filled with digressions and lack an underlying fable-like meaning to show readers the way in which people actually remember life events and interpret them. Despite how frustrated readers may feel about Tristram’s scattered thought process and memory, his character’s way of thinking accurately imitates how real people recollect the past.
Works Cited
“Providence” Def. 2. Oxford English Dictionary, n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.
Sterne, Laurence. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.