While Benji’s mind in The Sound and The Fury can seem disorienting, his visual associations function as a mnemonic device that once understood, pulls us into the novel much more viscerally than any plot driven narrative. First lets look at the definition of a mnemonic device. It is a technique a person can use to help them remember a long list of items or events, a memory aid. The oldest mnemonic device comes from Ancient Greece called the Method of Loci. The user is told to imagine a familiar place, usually their home. The user then, in their mind, fills the various rooms with the items they are trying to remember, associating the word to the location. This, while not intentionally, is how Benji views his life. 

The first key to understanding this section is to know that in his earlier years Benji is not allowed off the Compson estate. This can be assumed from the scene where Benji escapes. (TSATF p52) “How did he get out, father said. Did you leave the gate unlatched when you came in, Jason” This being said, Benji is very familiar with the Compson estate, and all of his memories are tied to locations there. Every cut off in his memory is strung together by another memory happening in the same location. This allows us to tie each point on the timeline to a location and collect several pieces of information. 

We start off with event #1 which starts in a golf course; this is every scene Luster is in. Since the golf course in the opining passage sparks a memory, we can infer it was once part of the Compson estate, and no longer is because it was sold off when the family was in financial destress. (TSATF p4) “Luster said. ‘You snagged on that nail again. Can’t you never crawl through here without snagging on that nail.”

The very next sentence (TSATF p4) “Caddy uncaught me and we crawled through” takes us to the first flashback of what we’ll denote event #2, Christmas day, as derived from (TSATF p4) “you don’t want your hands froze on Christmas, do you”. This is connected to the main arch through the fence which is in both timelines. This is also the day Caddy and Benji deliver the letter to Mrs Patterson. (TSATF p12) “You don’t want your hands froze on Christmas do you” and (TSATF p13) “She took the letter out of her pocket and put it in mine. ‘It’s a Christmas present.’”

The second flashback occurs at the fence as well. Event #3 is Benji waiting for Caddy at the gate a few days before Christmas, as seen in Caddy saying “Christmas is the day after tomorrow.” (TSAF page7) 

The fence is again mentioned the day Benji escapes and chases the girls as previously stated. 

As Luster and Benji in the main arch pass the carriage house, (TSAF p9) “we passed the carriage house”, flashback to event #4 occurs, the day TP takes Benji and his mother for a carriage ride. (TSAF p9) “‘Git in, now and set still until your maw come.’ Dilsey said. She shoved me into the carriage. T.P. held the reins”. We now see the present time line is Luster and Benji walking down memory lane, with the excuse of finding a quarter, as Benji has flashbacks of every place they pass. 

Occassionally, a slightly more complicated tactic happens, where a flashback is linked by the location in another flashback. Since these do not connect to the present at all, which is the easiest timeline to distinguish as it is the only one with Luster, it is sometimes difficult to see that these are two separate flashbacks. This is the case when event #5 occurs, Benji delivering a letter to Mrs. Patterson alone. This is triggered by remembering Mrs. Pattersons house when recalling event #2. These events are almost indistinguishable except for a few small clues. “‘You idiot’, Mrs. Patterson said, I told him never to send you alone again.” (TSATF p13) Beni is delivering a letter but unlike in event #2, he is without Caddy.

The next event #6 is covered the most, other than the present timeline. The day their grandmother dies. The location most associated with this is the tree Caddy climbs, but is introduced with the children playing in the branch, which Benji recalls when passing the branch in the present. (TSATF p17) “I hushed and got in the water and Roskus came and said to come to supper”. 

Event #7 is triggered by the barn, where T.P. and Benji got drunk at Caddy’s wedding and Quentin fought T.P. (TSATF p20) “The cows came jumping out of the barn.” “Quentin kicked T.P. again.” 

The next crucial location is the swing. In the present timeline “Miss Quentin and her beau (are)in the swing” (TSAF p46) which triggers a flashback to Caddy in the swing who wanted to “stay here and talk to Charlie a while”. (TSAF p47)

Locational memory allows us a vivid picture of the Compson manner and helps us interpret all the memories that fill the rooms, poetically strung together like a mental trail of bread crumbs as we follow Benji along his stroll in the present.