Stream of Consciousness (narrative mode)
Stream of consciousness is a narrative technique that seeks to emulate the natural flow of thoughts within a character's mind. This approach presents an unfiltered internal monologue, allowing readers to experience the character's thoughts, feelings, and perceptions in a raw and often illogical manner. Unlike traditional storytelling, which might utilize structured dialogue or third-person narration, stream of consciousness prioritizes the character's psychological state, immersing readers in their perspective.
The term was popularized by psychologist William James, who likened it to a continuous stream flowing through the mind. Literary figures such as May Sinclair and modernist authors like Virginia Woolf and James Joyce embraced this technique, using it to challenge conventional narrative forms and delve deep into characters' inner worlds. Distinctive features of stream of consciousness include long sentences, fragmented thoughts, and a less rigid grammatical structure, which can create a sense of immediacy and emotional intensity.
Although it can initially seem disorienting, this narrative mode fosters a unique connection between readers and characters, ultimately revealing the complexities of human consciousness. Notable works employing this style include Joyce's "Ulysses," Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," and Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury," highlighting its significance in modern literature.
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Stream of Consciousness (narrative mode)
Stream of consciousness is a literary device in which the author creates a narrative voice that simulates how an individual thinks rather than offering a fully articulated presentation of events. As a result, this form of narration is written as an uncensored, internalized monologue in which the narrator presents his or her ongoing, full range of thoughts, however illogical and disorganized they might be. It is intended to provide an alternative means of insight into the narrator's motivations, psychology, and character without relying on such standard narrative devices as dialogue, traditional first-person narration, or an omniscient (knowing everything) third-person description of the work's events.
Origins
Although American psychologist William James is often credited with originating the term stream of consciousness as a psychological state of mind, it was actually coined by another psychologist named Alexander Bain in his book The Senses and the Intellect (1855). However, James popularized the idea on a broader scale in his own work, The Principles of Psychology (1890). James defined it as being a mental state in which one thought inevitably leads to another, different thought without break. He equated this unbroken chain of thinking to a never-ending flowing river within the conscious mind, or a stream of consciousness. For James, the stream of consciousness was the intersection between the changing stimuli presented to an individual and the mind's ongoing reactions to them.
English critic and author May Sinclair first used the term stream of consciousness in a literary sense in 1918. Ironically, she was a friend of author Henry James, who was the brother of William James, and he helped introduce her to the English school of literary modernism. Many of these modernist writers were experimentalists who were seeking to break with the strict literary forms that characterized the Victorian era.
Among this generation of modernists was British author Dorothy Richardson. Richardson is best known for her sequence of thirteen semiautobiographical novels that she called Pilgrimage (1915–1967). Pointed Roofs (1915), the first novel in this series, told the story of a student teacher named Miriam Henderson. The story was highly introspective. All aspects of Henderson's life are given equal importance, ranging from the patterns in the carpet to her interactions with her family. The intent was to so fully immerse readers in the sensations of Henderson's life that they be able to make their own individual interpretations about what was important and what was not.
In reviewing Pointed Roofs for an English literary journal called the Egoist, Sinclair used William James's term stream of consciousness to describe the unique narrative flow of Richardson's novel. The term stuck and was subsequently attached to other writers—particularly Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Marcel Proust—who relied on similar narrative styles.
Characteristics
When authors employ a stream of consciousness, they are allowing readers inside the mind of the narrator. This insight is intended to provide a more honest representation of how a character is thinking and feeling.
Base impressions and emotions tend to drive stream of consciousness narrations. The goal of this style of narrative mode is to document the innermost sensations of thought and experience of the protagonist as he or she interacts with the world. Virginia Woolf called these primal sensations as being born "on the floor of the mind." As a fusion of internal and external elements, such thoughts are difficult to record for the reader. As a result, how an author chooses to record a character's innermost thoughts may vary, but they generally follow some distinct stylistic rules.
Stream of consciousness relies upon a writer providing access to the narrator's thoughts as if they were being spoken aloud. To do this, the author strives to re-create the thought process of a character. This may involve long run-on sentences, a lack of chronological order of events, unconventional grammatical structure (such as an absence of punctuation or first-person pronouns), and the use of non-traditional syntax (including placing words out of order). Stream of consciousness narratives may also be characterized by an intensity of emotion, the use of colloquial (i.e., conversational or slang) language, and a highly introspective viewpoint in which more focus is given to a character's interpretation of events than how they actually occurred. It can be alternately described as a fictional free association of thought.
Such a narrative perspective may be initially confusing to the reader. Ideally, this style should not detract from the narrative progression or readability of the story. As such, many authors use the stream of consciousness style in combination with other forms of narration. When used in this context, it is primarily intended to offer insight into the state of mind of a character.
Stream of consciousness is distinct from such similar narrative tools as monologues and soliloquys. In a monologue, a character expresses his or her innermost thoughts aloud for dramatic effect. A soliloquy also features a character speaking aloud, however, his or her comments are specifically addressed to the audience. In both forms, the thoughts of the character that is speaking are audibly expressed in a cohesive, organized manner.
Some of the first modernist books most commonly associated with stream of consciousness include Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Ulysses (1922); Woolf's Jacob's Room (1922), Mrs. Dalloway (1925), and To the Lighthouse (1927); and William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (1929). However, this literary tool has been used to great effect by many other writers, including Samuel Beckett, D.H. Lawrence, David Lodge, Katherine Mansfield, and Naguib Mahfouz.
Bibliography
Humphrey, Robert. Stream of Consciousness in the Modern Novel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962. 1–22. Print.
Lodge, David. "The Best Stream-of-Consciousness Novels." Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. 19 Jan. 2009. Web. 7 Mar. 2016. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/20/1000-novels-classic-novels
Marchetti, Giorgio. "A Theory of Consciousness." Mind, Consciousness, and Language. Giorgio Marchetti. Web. 7 Mar. 2016. http://www.mind-consciousness-language.com/consciousness.pdf
Rader, Mario. "Literary Theory: Stream of Consciousness in Modernist Literature." Red Vinyl Chair. RedVinylChair.com. 5 Sept. 2010. Web. 7 Mar. 2016. http://redvinylchair.com/2013/06/03/literary-theory-stream-of-consciousness-in-modernist-literature-suite101/
"Stream of Consciousness Definition." Literary Devices. Literary Devices. Web. 7 Mar. 2016. http://literarydevices.net/stream-of-consciousness/
"The Stream of Consciousness Technique." The Big Read. National Endowment of the Arts. Web. 7 Mar. 2016. http://www.neabigread.org/teachers‗guides/handouts/thethiefandthedogs/thethiefandthedogs‗handout‗1.pdf
"The Term 'Stream of Consciousness' and the Forgotten Modernist." Interesting Literature. Interesting Literature. 17 May 2014. Web. 7 Mar. 2016. http://interestingliterature.com/2014/05/17/the-term-stream-of-consciousness-and-the-forgotten-modernist/