A man to follow rules—or rules to follow him

A man to follow rules—or rules to follow him? is the narrator’s concise challenge to literary rule-following. The question emerges from a self-conscious discussion of how chapters are made: instead of prescribing a fixed method, the narrator defends his freedom to depart from rules and turns the chapter’s argument into an instance of that freedom.

The question of authority

The narrator asks whether a man should follow rules or rules should follow him. He presents the issue not as a neutral choice between two equivalent practices, but as a contest over who governs the act of writing. Rules appear as instruments that might claim authority over the writer; the question reverses that hierarchy and makes their legitimacy depend on the writer’s use of them.

A rule rejected in practice

The challenge is sharpened by the narrator’s declaration that he has no other rule to govern himself in the matter, and that even if he did, he would twist it, tear it to pieces, and throw it into the fire. This is not merely an abstract defense of irregularity: the imagined destruction of the rule enacts the independence the question advocates. The narrator’s emphatic warmth is itself part of the performance, as he insists that the cause warrants his passion.

Chapters as an example

The surrounding discussion turns the argument toward the book’s chapter-making. The narrator has divided the descent of a staircase across chapters, although the party has reached only the first landing and fifteen more steps remain. His father and Uncle Toby are in a talking mood, so further divisions may follow; he says he can no more control this than his destiny. Then a sudden impulse makes him drop the curtain, draw a line across the page, and begin a new chapter. The abrupt transition demonstrates the freedom under discussion: the narrative changes course by impulse rather than by a prescribed plan.

Form and meaning

The narrator calls this his chapter about chapters and contrasts his direct confession with a dogmatic, sententiously wise account of what chapters supposedly do for the mind and imagination. He mocks the idea of dressing the subject in cold generalities, even as he acknowledges that chapters can relieve the mind and assist or impose upon the imagination. The question therefore functions as both a proposition and a formal cue: the work’s digressions and sudden breaks make its challenge to rule-bound composition visible on the page.