Lawrence Sterne Anti - Novel

University of Basra 29/10/2022
College of Arts
Lawrence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
As anti- novel
By: Sara Ammar Abdulhussain
Supervisor: Prof.Dr. Jinan A.B Al-Hajaj
Laurence Sterne is believed to be an unusual writer that attracted both readers and literary critics
through his style of writing, his most known novel is The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy,
Gentleman, and published between1759-1769 consisted of nine books that were published over
ten years. The book is criticized for its boring structure, immoral tales, and ridiculous dialogue,
at the same time it is appreciated for its wit and satire, also Twentieth-century critics have added
appraisals for its musical structure, digressive art, and subversive post-modernist techniques.
Even though Tristram Shandy had its place in the English novel, it is hard to call it a novel. It
came as a reaction against the conventional novel that is a story with a beginning middle and an
end such as Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett. However, Smollett’s writings were not
completely related to each other and hardly there is a connection between the events, yet still,
there is a story. Sterne did not tell an ordinary story with a sequence of events, even the title of
the novel is misleading because Tristram did not appear in the story until the middle and he was
a baby, so how can a baby have life and opinions very early in his childhood?
Sterne did not stick to novel writing rules and started with media res and about the middle of the
book he wrote a preface, the events also are not chronologically arranged thus leading to an
irrational and absurd novel. Sterne wrote his novel as a parody of the novels of the eighteenth
century which started with the hero’s childhood until his death. So it is against the rationalism of
the Enlightenment, he also believed that human feelings and records of man’s inner life are of
high priority.
Although Sterne is criticized on moral and literary grounds by some critics for deliberate
incoherence and its sexual humor, this novel was an example and an amazing success that made
Sterne a literary celebrity and a notable forerunner of the Modern English novel. Despite the fact
that Sterne was influenced by older satirists such as Rabelais, Cervantes and Swift, Tristram
Shandy is loosely based on John Locke’s theory of the association of ideas. Characters are thus
presented by means of their emotions and impressions rather than through external incidents, and
because no two characters have the same associations, comic confusions abound when
communication is attempted.
An essay by D.W Jefferson stated that “The tendency among critics has been to comment on its
structural oddities without first discovering to what literary kind it belongs and what its author
was trying to do”. The novel can be considered as an anti-novel: “the overlapping between the
author, narrator, and main character […] creates confusion as to the identity of the author.” The
protagonist of the story is talking about his family as if they were fictional characters depending
on the narrator’s point of view, we also during the course of the story mix between Shandy and
Sterne as he goes inside the character’s mind and feelings. This novel is considered anti-novel
for multiple reasons: the dislocation of time, numerous digressions, and semantic experiments
including puns, ambiguities, compound, and foreign words. A long list of items, the telling of a
known story, an unexpected point of view, and the shift from one mode to another and from one
language to another (Ivan, 2010).
Furthermore, Sterne appeared as a misogynist in his novel Tristram Shandy, as this is indicated
clearly in different places: when he referred to the voice Sterne Utilizes in narrating his story and
the kind of his readers, he has a tendency to male readers telling explicit indirect stories with
sexual connotations. Also, female characters had less importance in Sterne’s novel in comparison
to male characters and their capabilities. Sterne’s reference to the nature of his relationship with
women in real life also shows his misogynist point of view.
Reading Sterne's novel, Tristram Shandy, one can conclude that he is a misogynist whose hatred
towards women makes him either ignore them, give them no roles in his novel, or present them
in a very immoral way. Considering women, and widows, as carnal beings or animals, he shows
the reader how Mrs. Wadman, a representative of all her gender, is responsible for the fall of her
counterpart, Uncle Toby. In Tristram Shandy, Sterne emphasized himself to be so extremist in
his view about women in the sense that he does not make of her the animal that has such hunger
for the body, but also as a victimizer of the male. Thus, one can see that all of his male characters
are unhappy and frustrated because of the presence of a woman in their lives as with Walter
Shandy whose cold relationship with his wife reflects Sterne's psyche and frigid conjugal relation
with his wife, or with Uncle Toby who, like Sterne, is fooled by the sentimental Mrs. Wadman.
By these two examples, Sterne wants to show "the sexually subversive possibilities in the
responsiveness of sensitive nerves and the aggrandizement of feelings" Such possibilities make
Sterne and his male characters in the novel helpless, paradoxically creative, and objects of
foolery (Hatif, 2013)
References
Hatif, H. (2013). Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy: A Study of Sterne's Character as a
Misogynist. file:///C:/Users/hp/Downloads/a83863b37f864e01.pdf
Ivan, O. (2010). Tristram Shandy: An Original and Profound English Novel of the Eighteenth
Century.
http://theroundtable.partium.ro/Current/Literary/Oana_Ivan_Tristram_Shandy_An_Original_and
_Profound_English_Novel_of_the_Eighteenth_Century.pdf

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University of Basra 29/10/2022

Lawrence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

By: Sara Ammar Abdulhussain

Supervisor: Prof.Dr. Jinan A.B Al-Hajaj

language to another (Ivan, 2010).

women in real life also shows his misogynist point of view.

counterpart, Uncle Toby. In Tristram Shandy, Sterne emphasized himself to be so extremist in

foolery (Hatif, 2013)

Hatif, H. (2013). Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy: A Study of Sterne's Character as a

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