Stream of consciousness (narrative mode)

For other uses, see Stream of consciousness (disam- life.[5]

biguation).
This article is about the literary device. For the prewrit-
ing technique, see Free writing.

In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a

narrative mode or method that attempts to depict the
multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through
the mind.[1] The term was coined by William James in
1890 in his The Principles of Psychology, and in 1918
the novelist May Sinclair (18631946) rst applied the
term stream of consciousness, in a literary context, when
discussing Dorothy Richardson's (18731957) novels.
Pointed Roofs (1915), the rst work in Richardsons series
of 13 semi-autobiographical novels titled Pilgrimage,[2]
is the rst complete stream of consciousness novel pub-
lished in English. However, in 1934, Richardson com-
ments that "Proust, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf & D.R.
... were all using 'the new method', though very dier-
ently, simultaneously.[3]

1 Denition
Stream of consciousness is a narrative device that at-
tempts to give the written equivalent of the charac-
ters thought processes, either in a loose interior mono-
logue (see below), or in connection to his or her actions.
Stream-of-consciousness writing is usually regarded as
a special form of interior monologue and is character-
ized by associative leaps in thought and lack of some or
all punctuation.[4] Stream of consciousness and interior
monologue are distinguished from dramatic monologue
and soliloquy, where the speaker is addressing an audi-
ence or a third person, which are chiey used in poetry or
drama. In stream of consciousness the speakers thought
processes are more often depicted as overheard in the
mind (or addressed to oneself); it is primarily a ctional
device.
The term stream of consciousness was coined by
philosopher and psychologist William James in The Prin-
ciples of Psychology (1890):
consciousness, then, does not appear to it-
self as chopped up in bits ... it is nothing
joined; it ows. A 'river' or a 'stream' are the
metaphors by which it is most naturally de-
scribed. In talking of it hereafter, lets call it the
stream of thought, consciousness, or subjective
Cover of James Joyce's Ulysses (rst edition, 1922), considered
a prime example of stream of consciousness writing styles.
In the following example of stream of consciousness from
James Joyces Ulysses, Molly seeks sleep:
a quarter after what an unearthly hour I
suppose theyre just getting up in China now
combing out their pigtails for the day well
soon have the nuns ringing the angelus theyve
nobody coming in to spoil their sleep except
an odd priest or two for his night oce the
alarmlock next door at cockshout clattering the
brains out of itself let me see if I can doze o
1 2 3 4 5 what kind of owers are those they
invented like the stars the wallpaper in Lom-
bard street was much nicer the apron he gave
me was like that something only I only wore it
twice better lower this lamp and try again so
that I can get up early [6]

1
2 3 DEVELOPMENT

2 Interior monologue But it is only in the twentieth-century that this technique

is fully developed by modernists. Marcel Proust is often
While many sources use the terms stream of conscious- presented as an early example of a writer using the stream
ness and interior monologue as synonyms, the Oxford of consciousness technique in his novel sequence la
Dictionary of Literary Terms suggests, that they can recherche du temps perdu (19131927) (In Search of Lost
also be distinguished psychologically and literarily. In a Time), but Robert Humphrey comments, that Proust is
psychological sense, stream of consciousness is the sub- concerned only with the reminiscent aspect of conscious-
jectmatter, while interior monologue is the technique ness and, that he was deliberately recapturing the past
for presenting it. And for literature, while an inte- for the purpose of communicating; hence he did not write
rior monologue always presents a characters thoughts 'di- a stream-of consciousness novel.[17] The term was rst
rectly', without the apparent intervention of a summariz- applied in a literary context in The Egoist, April 1918, by
ing and selecting narrator, it does not necessarily mingle May Sinclair, in relation to the early volumes of Dorothy
them with impressions and perceptions, nor does it nec- Richardson's novel sequence Pilgrimage. Richardson,
essarily violate the norms of grammar, or logic- but the however, describes the term as an 'lamentably ill-chosen
streamofconsciousness technique also does one or both metaphor.[18]
of these things.[7] Similarly the Encyclopdia Britannica James Joyce was a major pioneer in the use of stream
Online, while agreeing that these terms are often used of consciousness. Some hints of this technique, are al-
interchangeably, suggests, that while an interior mono- ready present in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
logue may mirror all the half thoughts, impressions, and (1916), along with interior monologue, and references to
associations that impinge upon the characters conscious- a characters psychic reality rather than to his external
ness, it may also be restricted to an organized presentation surroundings.[19] Joyce began writing A Portrait in 1907
of that characters rational thoughts.[8] and it was rst serialised in the English literary magazine
The Egoist in 1914 and 1915. Earlier in 1906 Joyce, when
working on Dubliners, considered adding another story
3 Development featuring a Jewish advertising canvasser called Leopold
Bloom under the title Ulysses. Although he did not pur-
sue the idea further at the time, he eventually commenced
3.1 Beginnings to 1922 work on a novel using both the title and basic premise
in 1914. The writing was completed in October 1921.
While the use of the narrative technique of stream of Serial publication of Ulysses in the magazine The Little
consciousness is usually associated with modernist nov- Review began in March 1918. Ulysses was nally pub-
elists in the rst part of the twentieth-century, a number lished in 1922. In his nal work Finnegans Wake (1939)
of precursors have been suggested, including Laurence Joyces method of stream of consciousness, literary allu-
Sterne's psychological novel Tristram Shandy (1757).[9] sions and free dream associations was pushed to the limit
It has been suggested that Edgar Allan Poe's short story in, which abandoned all conventions of plot and charac-
"The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843) foreshadows this literary ter construction and is written in a peculiar and obscure
technique in the nineteenth-century.[10] The short story English, based mainly on complex multi-level puns.
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (1890) by another
American author, Ambrose Bierce, also abandons strict Another early example is the use of interior monologue
linear time to record the internal consciousness of the by T. S. Eliot in his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred
protagonist.[11] Because of his renunciation of chronol- Prufrock" (1915), a work probably inuenced by the nar-
ogy in favor of free association, douard Dujardin's Les rative poetry of Robert Browning, including Soliloquy
Lauriers sont coups (1887) is also an important pre- of the Spanish Cloister.[20]
cursor. Indeed, the possibility of a direct inuence is
evoqued by James Joyce and Virginia Woolf and hav-
ing picked up a copy of Dujardins novel ... in Paris 3.2 1923 to 2001
in 1903.[12] There are also those who point to Anton
Chekhov's short stories and plays (1881-1904)[13] and Prominent uses in the years that followed the publica-
Knut Hamsun's Hunger (1890), and Mysteries (1892) as tion of James Joyces Ulysses, include Italo Svevo, La co-
oering glimpses of the use of stream of consciousness scienza di Zeno (1923),[21] Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
as a narrative technique at the end of the nineteenth- (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and William Faulkner
century.[14] Henry James has also been suggested as a sig-
in The Sound and the Fury (1929).[22] Though Randell
nicant precursor, in a work as early as Portrait of a Lady
Stevenson suggests, that interior monologue, rather than
(1881).[15] stream of consciousness, is the appropriate term for the
However, it has been suggested that Arthur Schnitzler style in which [subjective experience] is recorded, [23]
both
(1862-1931), in his short story '"Leutnant Gustl (None in The Waves and in Woolfs writing generally.
but the Brave, 1900), was in fact the rst to make full Samuel Beckett, a friend of James Joyce, uses interior
use of the stream of consciousness technique.[16] monologue in novels like Molloy (1951), Malone meurt

(1951; Malone Dies) and L'innommable (1953: The Un-
namable). and the short story "From an Abandoned
Work" (1957).[24]
The technique continued to be used into the 1970s in
a novel such as Robert Anton Wilson/Robert Shea col-
laborative Illuminatus! (1975), with regard to which
The Fortean Times warns readers, to "[b]e prepared for
streams of consciousness in which not only identity but
time and space no longer conne the narrative.[25]
Scottish writer James Kelman's novels are known for mix-
ing stream of consciousness narrative with Glaswegian
vernacular. Examples include The Busconductor Hines,
A Disaection and How Late It Was, How Late.[26]
With regard to Salman Rushdie one critic comments, that
"[a]ll Rushdies novels follow an Indian/Islamic story-
telling style, a stream-of-consciousness narrative told by
a loquacious young Indian man.[27]
Other writers who use this narrative device include Sylvia
Plath in The Bell Jar (1963)[28] and Irvine Welsh in
Trainspotting (1993).[29]
3.3 21st century
Stream of consciousness continues to appear in con-
temporary literature. Dave Eggers, author of A Heart- [12] Randell StevensonJ Modernist Fiction. Lexington: Uni-
breaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000), according
to one reviewer, talks much as he writes a force-
ful stream of consciousness, thoughts sprouting in all
directions.[30] Novelist John Banville describes Roberto [13] James Wood, Ramblings. London Review of Books.
Bolao's novel Amulet, as written in a fevered stream of
[31]
consciousness. The rst decade brought further ex- [14] James Wood. Addicted to Unpredictability. November
ploration, including Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is
Illuminated (2002) and many of the short stories of Amer-
ican author Brendan Connell.[32][33]
4 See also
Free indirect speech
Free writing
Internal monologue
Modernist literature
Stream of consciousness (psychology)
5 References
[1] J. A. Cuddon, A Dictionary of Literary Terms. (Har-
mondsworth, Penguin Books,1984), pp. 660-1).
[2] Joanne Winning (2000). The Pilgrimage of Dorothy
Richardson. Univ of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-
17034-9.
3
[3] In a letter to the bookseller and publisher Sylvia Beach
Windows of Modernism: Selected Letters of Dorothy
Richardson, ed. Gloria G. Fromm Athens, Georgia, Uni-
versity of Georgia Press, 1995, 282.
[4] For example, both Beckett and Joyce omitted full stops
and paragraph breaks, but while Joyce also omitted apos-
trophes, Beckett left them in.
[5] (I, pp.239-43) quoted in Randall Stevenson, Modernist
Fiction: An Introduction. (Lexington, Kentucky: Univer-
sity of Kentucky, 1992), p. 39.
[6] Joyce p. 642 (Bodley Head edition (1960), p. 930).
[7] ed. Chris Baldick, Oxford: Oxford U.P., 2009, p. 212.
[8] interior monologue. Encyclopdia Britannica. Ency-
clopdia Britannica Online. Encyclopdia Britannica
Inc., 2012. Web. 24 Sep. 2012. <http://www.britannica.
com/EBchecked/topic/290310/interior-monologue>.
[9] J. A. Cuddon, A Dictionary of Literary Terms. (Har-
mondsworth: Penguin, 1984), p. 661
[10] The Tell-Tale Heart - story by Poe.
[11] Khanom, Afruza. Silence as Literary Device in Ambrose
Bierces 'The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.' Teaching
American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice.
Spring 6.1 (2013): 45-52. Print.
versity of Kentucky, 1992, p. 227, fn 14; J. A. Cuddon,
A Dictionary of Literary Terms, p. 661.
Vol.22, no. 11, 1 June 2000, pp. 36-7.
26, 1998. London Review of Books. November 8, 2008
<http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n23/wood02_.html>
[15] M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms. New York:
Harcourt Brace, 1999), p. 299.
[16] stream of consciousness - literature.
[17] Stream of Consciousness in the Modern Novel (Berkeley &
Los Angeles: University of California, 1954), p. 4.
[18] Novels, Life and Letters, 56, March 1948, p. 189.
[19] Deming, p. 749.
[20] William Harmon & C. Holman, A Handbook to Literature
(7th edition). (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1996),
p. 272.
[21] [untitled review], Beno Weiss, Italica, Vol. 67, No. 3
(Autumn, 1990), p. 395.
[22] Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, p. 212.
[23] Modernist Fiction. Lexington: University of Kentucky,
1992, p. 55; Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, p. 212.
[24] Karine Germoni, '"From Joyce to Beckett: The Becket-
tian Dramatic Interior Monologue'". Journal of Beckett
Studies, Spring 2004, Vol. 13, issue 2.
4 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY

[25] The Fortean Times, issue 17 (August 1976), pp. 2627.

[26] Giles Harvey, Minds Are The Strangest Thing. The New
Yorker, May 20, 2013.

[27] John C. Hawley, Encyclopedia Of Postcolonial Studies

(Westport: Greenwood, 2001), p. 384.

[28] American Literature, Vol. 65, No. 2, Jun. 1993, p. 381.

[29] Sarah Keating, Tales from the Other Side of the Track.
Irish Times 3 May 2012.

[30] The agony and the irony, Stephanie Merritt. The Ob-
server, Sunday 14 May 2000.

[31] Amulet by Roberto Bolao, John Banville. The

Guardian, Saturday 12 September 2009.

[32] A nine-year-old and 9/11, Tim Adams The Observer,

Sunday 29 May 2005

[33] Brendan Connell, The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories

for Antiquated Children. Chomu Press, 2010.

6 Bibliography
Cohn, Dorrit. Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes
for Presenting Consciousness in Fiction, 1978.
Joyce, James. Ulysses, 1922; rpt. Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1986.
Friedman, Melvin. Stream of Consciousness: A
Study in Literary Method, 1955.

Humphrey, Robert. Stream of Consciousness in the

Modern Novel, 1954.

Randell, Stevenson. Modernist Fiction: An Introduc-

tion. Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1992.

Sachs, Oliver. In the River of Consciousness. New

York Review of Books, 15 January 2004.

Shaer, E.S. (1984). Comparative Criticism, Volume

4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 119.
Retrieved 12 Jan 2011.
Tumanov, Vladimir. Mind Reading: Unframed Di-
rect Interior Monologue in European Fiction. Ams-
terdam: Editions Rodopi, 1997. Googlebooks.
 5

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