When Tristram orders the reader to “––––––––––––– Shut the door. –––––––––––––” before recounting the scene in which he was conceived, he is adding an auditory sphere to his narrative by acting as a story- teller (TS 1.4: 6; Tadié 85). Tadié’s study is convincing in that it demonstrates how Tristram Shandy’s oddities can have a mimetic function beyond that of parody. Its theatrical gestures, although they reflexively point towards the physicality of the book situated between author and reader, do not always challenge the aesthetic illusion.