Digression In Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy

Traditionally, digression has been considered something that needs to be corrected because it is perceived to be irrelevant to the main theme of a work. However, recent critics have begun to accept digression as an intrinsic quality of a narrative form, even if it is relatively linear and simple narrative like an epic. In her essay, Judith Hawley gives Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy as an example to reflect these two different approaches because she believes that the novel has been identified as either total madness or an artistry (Hawley 21). She also claims Tristram Shandy is “rewarding” text for critics due of Stern’s contemplation on his digressions as well as using them as narrative tools. Undoubtedly, Laurence Stern’s The

According to Piper, these digressions are derived from stories that a narrator mentions, which helps reader to understand characters’ contemplations upon social decency, human psychology, literature and so on. In other words, opinionative digressions help a narrator to enrich the psychological depth of character. In his analysis of Mrs. Dalloway, Paul Ricoeur suggests that when a narrative is pulled backwards through ample excursions into past, world of action, which Ricoeur identifies as the sense of everydayness, is mixed together the world of introspection, which is related to the interiority/inner self (Ricoeur 104) In a way, Ricoeur claims that these fits of memories helps a narrator to enrich the hollowness of characters. In Tristram Shandy, however, Tristram does not need to pull back his narrative into past to reflect his opinions because past obtrudes itself into present (Baird 804) For instance, when Dr.Slop finishes cursing Obadiah- which already happened in the past-, Tristram intervenes the scene and shares his idea about cursing. His interference should not be seen as irrelevant or disruptive because Tristram, in the first place, claims that he has written “not only his life but also his opinions” (I.v.11). Additionally, since Tristram believes that his opinions will help him to increase the familiarity with his reader as long as his readers bear with him or with his incessant digressions, it is possible to claim that his opinionative digressions help him to hold the promise of progression, rather than threating