Written under the influence of John Locke’s 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding,' the novel satirizes Lockean “associationism” and illustrates language’s inability to express ideas accurately. The non-linear narrative of Laurence Sterne’s 'Tristram Shandy' demands attentive readers. This paper is an attempt to study these instances of self-reflexivity in Tristram Shandy's narrative. Additionally, by employing textual and typographical peculiarities such as marbled and black pages, asterisks and dashes, Sterne aims to reinforce the self-reflexivity of his novel, and simultaneously defy the conventions of realistic novels. There are numerous instances in Tristram Shandy that Sterne steps out of the narrative proper and directly addresses the readers and comments on the processes of writing in order to provoke readers' collaboration in the creation of meaning. One of the shared strands between Tristram Shandy and a number of postmodernist novels, among other similarities, is narrative self-reflexivity. Laurence Sterne's nine-volume work, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-67), is not customarily categorized as a typical eighteenth-century novel for the reason that it bears a close resemblance to postmodernist novels, albeit it was written and published in the eighteenth century.
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