Stream of Consciousness PDF

Stream of Consciousness
“The stream of our thought is like a river. On the whole easy simple flowing predominates...But
at intervals an obstruction, a set-back, a log-jam occurs, stops the current, creates an eddy, and
makes things move the other way.”
William James (1842 - 1910)

U.S. psychologist and philosopher.
The Principles of Psychology
Stream of Consciousness, literary technique, first used in the late 19th century, employed to
evince subjective as well as objective reality. It reveals the character's feelings, thoughts, and
actions, often following an associative rather than a logical sequence, without commentary by
the author.
Stream of consciousness is often confused with interior monologue, but the latter technique
works the sensations of the mind into a more formal pattern: a flow of thoughts inwardly
expressed, similar to a soliloquy. The technique of stream of consciousness, however, attempts to
portray the remote, preconscious state that exists before the mind organizes sensations.
Consequently, the re-creation of a stream of consciousness frequently lacks the unity, explicit
cohesion, and selectivity of direct thought.
Stream of consciousness, as a term, was first used by William James, the American philosopher
and psychologist, in his book The Principles of Psychology (1890). Widely used in narrative
fiction, the technique was perhaps brought to its highest point of development in Ulysses (1922)
and Finnegans Wake (1939) by the Irish novelist and poet James Joyce. Other exponents of the
form were American novelist William Faulkner and British novelist Virginia Woolf. The British
writer Dorothy Richardson is considered by some actually to be the pioneer in use of the device.
Her novel Pilgrimage (1911-1938), a 12-volume sequence, is an intense analysis of the
development of a sensitive young woman and her responses to the world around her.
Characters in Stream of Consciousness :
In the 20th century, experiments with stream of consciousness, a literary technique in which
authors represent the flow of sensations and ideas, added to the depth of character portrayal.
English novelist Virginia Woolf followed this approach to explore the characters of an
Englishwoman and a young former soldier in Mrs. Dalloway (1925). Sometimes stream of
consciousness challenges the reader. In To the Lighthouse (1927), Woolf achieves a deliberately
disorienting effect by moving subtly from character to character, from past to present, and from
external events to internal thoughts.
Stream of consciousness as technique :
Irish writer James Joyce. In his novel Ulysses (1922) he focused on the events of a single day
and related them to one another in thematic patterns based on Greek mythology. In Finnegans
Wake (1939) Joyce went beyond this to create a whole new vocabulary of puns and portmanteau
(merged) words from the elements of many languages and to devise a simple domestic narrative
from the interwoven parts of many myths and traditions. In some of these experiments his novels
were paralleled by those of Virginia Woolf, whose Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse
(1927) skillfully imitated, by the so-called stream-of-consciousness technique, the complexity of
immediate, evanescent life experienced from moment to moment. Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett
appeals to a small but discerning readership with her idiosyncratic dissections of family
relationships, told almost entirely in sparse dialogue; her novels include Brothers and Sisters
(1929), Men and Wives (1931), and Two Worlds and Their Ways (1949).
Faulkner's works demanded much of his readers. To create a mood, he might let one of his
complex sentences run on for more than a page. He juggled time, spliced narratives,
experimented with multiple narrators, and interrupted simple stories with rambling, stream-of-
consciousness soliloquies. Although hailed as a genius, Faulkner acquired a reputation as a
difficult author to read. American critic Malcolm Cowley, concerned that the writer was
insufficiently known and appreciated, put together The Portable Faulkner (1946). This book
arranged excerpts from Faulkner’s novels into a chronological sequence that gave the entire
Yoknapatawpha saga a new clarity. The collection made Faulkner's work accessible to a new
generation of readers.
Faulkner's works demanded much of his readers. To create a mood, he might let one of his
complex sentences run on for more than a page. He juggled time, spliced narratives,
experimented with multiple narrators, and interrupted simple stories with rambling, stream-of-
consciousness soliloquies. Although hailed as a genius, Faulkner acquired a reputation as a
difficult author to read. American critic Malcolm Cowley, concerned that the writer was
insufficiently known and appreciated, put together The Portable Faulkner (1946). This book
arranged excerpts from Faulkner’s novels into a chronological sequence that gave the entire
Yoknapatawpha saga a new clarity. The collection made Faulkner's work accessible to a new
generation of readers.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), British novelist, essayist, and critic, who helped create the modern
novel. Her writing often explores the concepts of time, memory, and people’s inner
consciousness, and is remarkable for its humanity and depth of perception.
Before the early 1900s, fiction emphasized plot as well as detailed descriptions of characters and
settings. Events in the external world, such as a marriage, murder, or deception, were the most
important aspects of a story. Characters' interior, or mental, lives served mainly to prepare for or
motivate such meaningful external occurrences. Woolf's novels, however, emphasized patterns
of consciousness rather than sequences of events in the external world. Influenced by the works
of French writer Marcel Proust and Irish writer James Joyce, among others, Woolf strove to
create a literary form that would convey inner life. To this end, she elaborated a technique known
as stream of consciousness, recording, as she described it, 'the atoms as they fall upon the mind
in the order in which they fall,' tracing 'the pattern, however disconnected ... in appearance,
which each ... incident scores upon consciousness.' Her novels do not limit themselves to a single
consciousness, but move from character to character, using interior monologues to present each
person's differing responses, often to the same event. Her specific contribution to the art of
fiction was this representation of multiple consciousnesses hovering around a common center.

Stream of Consciousness PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Stream of Consciousness PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Stream of Consciousness PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Stream of Consciousness

William James (1842 - 1910)

Stream of consciousness as technique :

You might also like