THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
definition of the modern self
by William James in the Principles of Psychology
Consciousness does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A river or stream are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. - William James
1890
it became one of the most adopted narrative techniques of the Modernism
ie Virginia Woolf and James Joyce
examples
James Joyce's direct interior monologue
Virginia Woolf's indirect interior monologue
thoughts of the character without the author's filter
revelation of the character's thought with the filter of an non obtrusive omniscient narrator
James Joyce's Ulysses (1922)
James Joyce's Ulysses (1922), a complex evocation of the inner states of the characters Leopold and Molly Bloom and Stephen Dedalus.
Stream of Consciousness tries to reproduce the continuous flow of human thought, which at times overlaps past present and future.
technique is characterized by
linguistic and psychological devices:
Linguistically short compressed sentences often without a main verb and subject
Bring in abrupt images or thoughts from a character's past
Description of an event interrupted by comments or thoughts
Question in the mind
Musical quality of words (assonance, alliteration)
Flashbacks, fade-outs and slow-ups
Story within a story
Use of similes and metaphors.
Time and place have subjective dimensions
Interior monologue,
The point of view is fragmented
Unconventional punctuation
Human by Rag’n’bone Man
Mrs. Dallaway
Sigmund Freud
Henri Bergson
Interpretation of Dreams
time is is structured not as a series of discrete units, but as a constant flow
fragmentation of the self
to express trauma connected to the war
it became an instrument to express the war within the human self itself
the stream of consciousness offered writers the opportunity to describe the war
actual representation of the broken self
non filtered 1st person narrator
filtered 3 rd person omniscent narrator