Stream of consciousness
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Transcript of Stream of consciousness
Stream of Consciousness in
To the Lighthouse
Definition
Features
Origin
Outline
Signs
Examples
Activities
Importance
References
Terms
Differenc
es
Stream of Consciousness is a literary technique which was pioneered by
Dorthy Richardson, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce. Stream of consciousness is characterized by a flow of thoughts
and images, which may not always appear to have a coherent structure or cohesion. The plot line may weave in and out of time and place, carrying the reader through the life span of a character or further along a timeline
to incorporate the lives (and thoughts) of characters from other
time periods.
Definition
*A literary technique that reveals the flow of thoughts and feelings of
characters through long passages of soliloquy.
Reference
William James
The Principles of Psychology
(1890)
Other Terms
The decay of
the
plot
The decay of the
Character
Death of the author
Features
* Focalization on inner thoughts and feelings.
* No first-person but figural narrative mode.
* The flow of thoughts is represented by means of long-winding, interconnected sentences.
* Use of informal, colloquial language .
* The breaking of Grammatical rules.
* Punctuation is neglected.
The difference between the Stream of Consciousness and
Interior Monologue
Interior Monologue A stylized way of thinking out loud. (Technically: thinking ‘on the page’.)
Unlike stream-of-consciousness, an interior monologue can be integrated into a third-person narrative. The point of view of character’s thoughts are woven into authorial description, using their own language.
This is the essential difference between interior monologue and straight narrative : :
Narrative = the narrator talking ( ‘the narrator’ – that made-up character who sounds like the author.
Interior Monologue = a character talking/thinking, using words ,specific to that character, making assumptions, mistaken judgments, .
Note: If interior monologue is done well, you won’t even notice
Stream of Consciousness
Another stylized way of thinking out loud. The term ‘stream of consciousness’ is very similar to
interior monologue – and used interchangeably by some – but this refers more specifically to a first person narrative which mimics the jumble of thoughts, emotions and memories passing through a character’s mind. (Interior monologue is not necessarily written in first person.)
Stream of consciousness tends to be less ordered than interior monologue. Consciousness has no beginning and no end – thoughts flit quite randomly from one thing to another.
The Window
Chapter
1“Had there been an axe handy, a poker,
or any weapon that would have gashed a hole in his father’s breast and killed him, there and then, James would have seized
it. Such were the extremes of emotion that Mr Ramsay excited in his children’s breasts by his mere presence; standing, as now, lean as a knife, narrow as the
blade of one, grinning sarcastically, not only with the pleasure of disillusioning his son and casting ridicule upon his
wife, who was ten thousand times better in every way than he was (James
thought)”
Keyword
James thought
* Focalization on inner thoughts and feelings.
* No first-person but figural narrative mode.
“Who was ten thousand times better in every
way than he was (James thought)”“there and then,
James would have seized it.”
* Use of informal, colloquial language .
“Had there been an axe handy, a poker, or any weapon that would have gashed a hole in his father’s
breast and killed him”
* The flow of thoughts is represented by means of long-winding, interconnected sentences.
The Window
Chapter
1“Yes, he did say disagreeable things,
Mrs. Ramsay admitted; it was odious of him to rub this in, and make
James still more disappointed; but at the same time, she would not let them
laugh at him. ‘The atheist’, theycalled him; ‘the little atheist’, Rose
mocked him; Prue mocked him; Andrew, Jasper, Roger mocked him;
even old Badger without a tooth in his head had ”bit him
Keyword
Mrs. Ramsay admitted
* Focalization on inner thoughts and feelings.
* No first-person but figural narrative mode.
“but at the same time, she would not let them laugh at
him”
* Use of informal, colloquial language .
‘The atheist’, theycalled him; ‘the little atheist,’
* The flow of thoughts is represented by means of long-winding, interconnected sentences.
“There’ll be no landing at the Lighthouse tomorrow,” said Charles Tansley, clapping his
hands together as he stood at the window with her husband. Surely, he had said enough. She wished they would both leave her and James alone and go
on talking. She looked at him. He was such a miserable specimen, the children said, all humps
and hollows. He couldn’t play cricket; he poked; he shuffled. He was a sarcastic brute, Andrew said. They knew what he liked best — to be for ever walking up and down, up and down, with Mr
Ramsay, and saying who had won this, who had won that, who was a “first rate man” at Latin
verses, who was “brilliant but I think fundamentally unsound,” who was undoubtedly the “ablest fellow in Balliol,” who had buried his light
temporarily at Bristol or Bedford, but was bound to be heard of later when his Prolegomena, of which Mr Tansley had the first pages in proof with him if Mr Ramsay would like to see them, to some branch of mathematics or philosophy saw the light of day.
That ”was what they talked about.
The Window
Chapter
1
Keyword
She wished
* Focalization on inner thoughts and feelings.
* No first-person but figural narrative mode.
”“leave her
“She looked at him”.
“She wished”
* Use of informal, colloquial language .
“He was such a miserable specimen, the children said, all humps and hollows.
He couldn’t play cricket; he poked; he
shuffled. He was a sarcastic brute, Andrew said.”
* The flow of thoughts is represented by means of long-winding, interconnected sentences.
The Window
Chapter
5“And even if it isn’t fine tomorrow,”
said Mrs Ramsay, raising her eyes to glance at William Bankes and Lily Briscoe as they passed, “it will be another day. And now,” she said, thinking that Lily’s charm was her Chinese eyes, aslant in her white,
puckered little face, but it would take a clever man to see it, “and now stand up, and let me measure your leg,” for they might go to the Lighthouse after all, and she must see if the stocking
did not need to be an inch or two ”longer in the leg.
Smiling, for it was an admirable idea, that had flashed upon her this very second — William and Lily should
marry — she took the heather-mixture stocking, with its criss-cross of steel
needles at the mouth of it, and measured it against James’s leg. “My dear, stand still,” she said, for in his
jealousy, not liking to serve as measuring block for the Lighthouse keeper’s little boy,
James fidgeted purposely; and if he did that, how could she see, was it too long,
was it too short? she asked.She looked up — what demon possessed
him, her youngest, her cherished—?
Keywords
ThinkingSmiling, for it was an admirable idea
* Focalization on inner thoughts and feelings.
* No first-person but figural narrative mode.
“she must see”
“her this very second”
“her youngest, her
cherished”?
* The flow of thoughts is represented by means of long-winding, interconnected sentences.
The Window
Chapter
8“He said nothing. He took opium. The
children said he had stained his beard yellow with it. Perhaps. What was obvious
to her was that the poor man was unhappy, came to them every year as an escape; and yet every year she felt the same thing; he did not trust her. She said, “I am going to the town. Shall I get you stamps, paper, tobacco?” and she felt him wince. He did not trust her. It was his wife’s doing. She
remembered that iniquity of his wife’s towards him, which had made her turn to steel and adamant there, in the horrible
little room in St John’s Wood, when with her own eyes she had seen that odious woman
turn him out of the house ”.
“He was unkempt; he dropped things on his coat; he had the
tiresomeness of an old man with nothing in the world to do; and she turned him out of the room.
She said, in her odious way, “Now, Mrs Ramsay and I want to have a
little talk together”,
The Window
Chapter
8
Keywords
What was obvious to her
She remembered that iniquity
she felt the same thing
* Focalization on inner thoughts and feelings.
In This Quotation
*Mr. Carmichael’s character
*The story behind his character
* No first-person but figural narrative mode.
“Obvious to her”
“He did not trust her”
* Use of informal, colloquial language .
when with her own eyes she had seen that odious woman turn
him out of the house ”.
* The flow of thoughts is represented by means of long-winding, interconnected sentences.
The Window
Chapter
12“His arm was almost like a young
man’s arm, Mrs. Ramsay thought, thin and hard, and she thought with
delight how strong he still was, though he was over sixty, and how untamed and optimistic, and how
strange it was that being convinced, as he was, of all sorts of horrors,
seemed not to depress him, but to cheer him. Was it not odd, she
reflected? Indeed he seemed to her sometimes made differently from
other people, born blind, deaf ’,
“and dumb, to the ordinary things, but to the extraordinary things, with an eye like an eagle’s. His understanding often
astonished her. But did he notice the flowers? No. Did he notice the view? No. Did he even notice his own daughter’s beauty, or whether there was pudding on his plate or roast beef? He would sit
at table with them like a person in a dream. And his habit of talking aloud,
or saying poetry aloud, was growing on him, she was afraid; for sometimes it
was awkward”
Keyword
Mrs. Ramsay thought
* Focalization on inner thoughts and feelings.
* No first-person but figural narrative mode.
“She thought with delight”
* Use of informal, colloquial language .
“he seemed to her sometimes made differently from other people, born blind, deaf, and
dumb, to the ordinary things,”
* The flow of thoughts is represented by means of long-winding, interconnected sentences.
The Window
Chapter
10“In a moment he would ask her,
“Are we going to the Lighthouse?” And she would have to say, “No: not tomorrow; your father says
not.” Happily, Mildred came in to fetch them, and the bustle
distracted them. But he kept looking back over his shoulder as Mildred carried him out, and she was certain that he was thinking,
we are not going to the Lighthouse tomorrow; and she ”thought, he
will remember that all his life.
Keywords
He would ask her
She would have to say
She was certain that he was thinking
She thought
* Focalization on inner thoughts and feelings.
* No first-person but figural narrative mode.
“She was certain”
* The flow of thoughts is represented by means of long-winding, interconnected sentences.
The Window
Chapter
4“Never was anybody at once so ridiculous
and so alarming. But so long as he kept like that, waving, shouting, she was safe; he
would not stand still and look at her picture. And that was what Lily Briscoe could not have endured. Even while she looked at the mass, at the line, at the
colour, at Mrs Ramsay sitting in the window with James, she kept a feeler on her
surroundings lest some one should creep up, and suddenly she should find her
picture looked at. But now, with all her senses quickened as they were, looking,
straining, till the colour of the wall and the jacmanna beyond burnt into her eyes,”
“She was aware of someone coming out of the house, coming towards
her; but somehow divined, from the footfall, William Bankes, so that
though her brush quivered, she did not, as she would have done had it been Mr Tansley, Paul Rayley, Minta Doyle, or practically anybody else,
turn her canvas upon the grass, but let it stand. William Bankes stood
beside her”.
Keyword
She was aware of
* Focalization on inner thoughts and feelings.
* No first-person but figural narrative mode.
“Her brush”
“Lily Briscoe could not have
endured”
* The flow of thoughts is represented by means of long-winding, interconnected sentences.
chapter xvii of the window begins with Mrs. Ramsay wondering what she has done with her life, as she directs guests to their
seats and ladles out soup. she sees her husband at the far end of the table, frowning. “what at? she did not know. she did not
mind. she could not understand how she had ever felt any emotion or affection for him” . As she thinks about her
displeasure and disconnectedness with Mr. Ramsay. Mrs. Ramsay notes that she would not speak out loud her inner
feelings. there is a strict difference between her actions and her thoughts:
.
raising her eyebrows at the discrepancy—that was what she was thinking, this was what she was doing—ladling
out soup—she felt, more and more strongly, outside that eddy.
being outside of the eddy is her sense of “being past everything, through everything, out of everything” .
completely out of touch with Mr. Ramsay and everyone else at the table, she instead focuses on how shabby
the room is, how sterile the men are, and how she pities William Bankes. finding meaning and strength again in her pity, she gets past her mental weariness enough to
ask him an innocuous question about his letters
The point of view shifts abruptly to Lily Briscoe, who is watching Mrs. Ramsay
intently and imagining her thoughts. Lily is able to read Mrs. Ramsay pretty clearly:
“How old she looks, how worn she looks, and how remote” (84). She wonders why Mrs.
Ramsay pities William Bankes, and she realizes that “the life in her, her resolve to
live again, had been stirred by pity” (84). Lily does not find Bankes pitiable, but she
recognizes that Mrs. Ramsay is fulfilling some need of her own.
Lily thinks about how Bankes has his work, then her thoughts switch to her own work, and she starts imagining her painting and the adjustments she will make. As if to remind the readers of the setting, Woolf has Lily take up “the salt cellar and put it down again on a flower in pattern in the table-cloth, so as to remind herself to move the tree” (84-85). After all of Lily Briscoe’s thoughts, Mr. Bankes finally responds to Mrs. Ramsay’s inquiry as to whether he has found his letters.
By shifting the point of view from character to character,
Woolf shares each character’s thoughts and feelings, opinions
and reactions to one another. The dynamics between the
characters are expressed more fully by their thoughts than by
their words. Woolf develops her characters through their thoughts, memories, and
reactions to each other
Importance
*How they feel about themselves .
*How they feel about other characters .
* Physical description.
* Different Events ( Past/ Present/ Future)
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