The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy

The term “identity” is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “blah blah blah”. This concept can be viewed as personal and individual to one’s self, and is distinguished as an umbrella term to attributes such as; consciousness, heritage, name, appearance, and the soul. As Sterne’s novel Tristram Shandy draws influence from John Locke’s An Essay of Human Understanding, in which Locke discusses the origin of personal identity, the individual identity is evidently reflected within the text. The novel demonstrates Sterne’s interpretation of the personal identity through the construction of each of his unique characterisations. Tristram Shandy discusses the concept and origin of the individuality identity both reflecting and opposing Locke’s theory, and therefore should be considered to have more substance than just a “cock and bull story”.
Whereas Tristram fictitiously titles his novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, the novel itself includes very minor detail of the protagonist’s recollected life and instead he draws more focus upon the events involving the supporting characters of the novel, and instead surrounding his earlier childhood. These, however, allow Sterne to identify the early developments of Tristram’s individual identity through hereditary and social influences upon his personality. The protagonist begins his novel by presenting the notion that it was his parent’s actions, as he formed as a homunculus, which became the defining influence on his misfortunate existence. “I wish either my father of my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me[…] had they duly weighed and considered all this […] I am verily persuaded I sh...

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...: he signed his letters as Tristram, published his sermons as Yorick, […] “Shandy[ing] it away” in what Thomas Keymer calls “a highly visible form of performance art, through which Sterne’s social existence could become an extension of his fictional text.” (Fawcett, 2012) Similarly to Tristram Shandy, Sterne used his characterisations, or “supporting characters”, in order to project his personal identity onto society. The two characterisations mirror Sterne’s professions as both a novelist and a clergyman, and it can therefore be identified that Tristram Shandy projects elements of Sterne’s own identity. There is also uniqueness in his form of writing, as his “cock and bull story” presents a key change in the novel writing craft, and is often regarded as “the progenitor of the twentieth century stream of consciousness novel.” (Day, Keegan, 2009, pg5) Sterne’s unique