Orality’s tendency to be “empathetic and participatory rather than objectively distanced”: Unlike most work within the typographic tradition, Tristram is constantly making reference to the reader, addressing him or her personally by posing questions or challenges. In Book 1, Chapter 20, Tristram converses with his own imagined audience.
---How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter? I told you in it, That my mother was not a papist.---Papist! You told me no such thing, Sir.---Madam, I beg leave to repeat it over again, that I told you as plain, at least, as words, by direct inference, could tell you such a thing.---Then, Sit, I must have missed a page.---No, Madam,---you have not missed a word.---Then I was asleep, Sir.---My pride, Madam, cannot allow you that refuge.---Then, I declare, I know nothing at all about the matter.---That, Madam, is the very fault I lay to your charge; and as a punishment for it, I do insist upon it, that you immediately turn back, that is, as soon as you get to the next full stop, and read the whole chapter over again.
At this point, Tristram goes into a divergence on the nature of stories and the audience’s responsibility to reflect and draw conclusions on the way.
---But here comes my fair lady. Have you read over again the chapter, Madam, as I desired you?---You have: And did you not observe the passage, upon the second reading, which admits the inference?---Not a word like it!
On many occasions, Tristram refers to his reader as a Sir or a Madam, and asks him or her to re-read, to pay close attention, or to reflect presently upon what has been read. Sterne wrote his novel to include a participatory aspect, to keep the reader within proximity. He breaks the convention of solipsistic first person narration, giving Tristram the qualities of an orally told, empathetic story.
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