Tristram Shandy’s narrative is organized not according to chronological sequence but according to the whims of its narrator’s and characters’ minds. The characters’ idiosyncratic associations with words, sounds, objects, and ideas constantly hijack their attention and pull them—and the narrative—into digressions, most of them seemingly irrelevant to the situation at hand. When Doctor Slop makes a bridge to repair Tristram’s nose after he crushed it with his forceps, for example, the word “bridge” reminds Toby of his model battlefield, and he is immediately distracted from the very serious matter at hand—that his newborn nephew has been injured—to focus on his hobbyhorse instead. Moments such as these playfully illustrate Locke’s theory of the association of ideas, which posits that the human mind forms associations among sensory experiences and mental processes that dictate what we “know” and how we feel. Tristram Shandy’s characters often push Locke’s association of ideas to deliberately silly extremes as they are pulled by their minds’ associations into absurd behavior.

But Tristram Shandy’s digressive narrative style is not merely comedic. No matter how arbitrary or silly they may be, the characters’ associations and digressions have real effects on their lives, and by shaping his narrative around them, Sterne illustrates important facets of human experience.