Stream of Conscious - Research Paper Example

A refined piece of literature is undoubtedly the representative of the era in which it has been produced, and reflects the social and cultural aspects prevailing all around the author within his social structure. Consequently, such a superb literary piece vehemently points out towards the problems the people are undergoing as well as the activities they get involved into during their everyday life. Though hundreds of literary genres have quite unconsciously given birth to the variety of topics depicting the thoughts and actions of the members of society, there appeared a school, during the Modern Era of English Literature, which interlinked all human actions with some specific thoughtfulness. This sudden current of ideas immediately captures the mind of an individual and keeps it under its control for a long time. Such a whimsical but long-lasting thoughtfulness is, however, not the outcome of one sudden event or incident; on the contrary, it is actually the product of the uneven circumstances prevailing in the social and natural environment of the author, which he looks for drawing out in a realistic manner through the magic of his writing dexterity. The same is applied to stream of consciousness, which concentrates upon human psychology and extracts the reflection of the fluctuations existing in human mind in one way or the other. Our conscious mental life flows, James states, continuously like a stream in which “the transition between the thought of one object and the thought of another is no more a break in the thought than a joint in a bamboo is a break in the wood.” (Quoted in Marchetti, 2002) The authors, observing stream of consciousness in their works, expose persistent surge of ideas that consist of passion, ambitions, concerns and perils, controlling and disturbing the mind and confining the thought within some particular whirlpool of feelings. Thus, the works of these authors are more psychological and philosophic than romantic or commercial in nature, and serve as the representative of most talented brains having command over conscious and subconscious of human mind. This school of thought unconsciously emerged by the beginning of twentieth century, where the French writer Marcel Proust (1871-1922), Irish novelist James Joyce (1882-1941), American fiction writer William Faulkner and female English novelist Miss Dorothy Richardson (1873-1957) penned down such literary genres during the same literary era without getting least acquaintance with one another. Although the works produced by Virginia Woolf appeared later during 1920s onward, yet the powerful imagination and sonorous mannerism she displayed in creating stream of conscious proved her as the leader and protagonist of the stream of conscious school of thought. The authors of this literary genre not only led a semi recluse life and remained confined to studies and writings, but also these writers found themselves mentally isolated and lonely. It is therefore the characters of their works are limited in number, and the entire story revolves round one or two characters only. Hence, the minor characters either appear for a moment or two, or their dialogues and actions are directly related to the thinking and imagination of the protagonist character(s). one of the most distinctive trait of this genre is this that the protagonist(s) of these works also maintain philosophic nature, and are more interested in abstract ideas rather than materialistic objects. The works also expose how occurring of an event drags the attention of the people towards some direction in such an effective manner that it leads him towards the chronicle of events related to some important incidents happened in past or olden past as well. Hence, the soliloquy defines the inner feelings of the characters, which endorses the notion that stream of consciousness is actually the monologue displaying the views and opinions of different characters about the people and objects in their environment. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1924) describes the same flow of ideas comes in the mind of the protagonist Clarissa. The beginning of the novel displays how the arrival of an airplane and the sound of explosion during Clarissa’s visit to market interrupts the thinking and subsequently draw out moderately a fresh picture of individuals, incidents, places and circumstances after every moment. It simultaneously captures the mind of the readers by taking into absolutely a new world along with the flow of ideas within a jiffy. The novel depicts the velocity of human mind and many thousands of the thoughts confined in the conscious and sub-conscious of human brain. It indicates the novelist’s command over human nature, psychology, needs, desires and unfulfilled wishes. Similarly the sight of flower at a shop, arrival of Peter Walsh, meeting with Scrop Purris and the suicide committed by Septimus Smith—all reveal flow of ideas feelings immediately changing Clarissa’s mind and her course of action as well. Woolf portrays her characters in such a manner that they “stick to their past, visualize the bright future, hypothesize the fellow beings and remain in close proximity with their present” (Silver, 1999). Almost the same characteristics could be explored in the works created by James Joyce, where his Ulysses (1922) described the same. In Ulysses, the protagonists including Mulligan and Dedalus experience the same current of ideas while dealing with their social environment, and fall in deep contemplation quite unconsciously. Their minds remain engaged in thoughts, which jump from one idea to the other within moments according to the humans or objects appear before their eyes. The work slightly mourns at the sorry state of affairs the Irish people and their motherland is undergoing. It is partially due to the political authorities and statesmen too, which are reluctant to win freedom from the United Kingdom. While studying the works produced by Woolf and Joyce it becomes evident that both the writers look for excluding the upper class from their very social structure. Apparently, the literary works of these authors focus upon the thinking of one or more characters, yet it does not mean that they confine their work to mere psychological thoughtfulness or current of ideas only. Rather, every flow carries political, social and cultural aspects of post WWI situation in its fold. As Woolf depicts how hollow and superficial had become the elite stratum of British society in the aftermath of WWI, which not turned the entire society sick, exasperating and retarded, but also had brought imperative alterations in the entire social structure at large. The same current of imagination could be found in the short story Barn Burning by William Faulkner. Falkner also portrays the same feelings by highlighting the significant characteristics prevailing in the society. Faulkner, through the mouth of the protagonist boy, the younger Snopes, exposes the existing ethno-racial conflict within the USA society in his short story Barn Burning. Faulkner has shown how social reconstruction has affected the everyday life of the individuals in the wake of the end of racial discrimination from the country. There was a time when the African Americans had not been granted the human rights equivalent to their white counterparts. This segregation prevailed in every department and even in public places including hospitals, parks, and railway stations and in public transport, where the Blacks were bound to vacant the seats in the buses for the whites as a token of their so called superiority. The young boy laments upon the vindictive attitude of his father, Abner, who sets farms of the landlords to fire provided they are not satisfied with his services. The young boy observes severe conflict in his mind, where on the one side there are his father and elder brother busy in committing such a heinous crime against the landlord; and on the other side, it appears the call of conscience that pricks him to save others from getting ruined at the hands of his father and brother. The conflict is described in the form of soliloquy that reflects the tense condition of his mind. Then, he takes bold decision and informs one of the would-be victims that his barn is ‘going to be burnt tonight.’ Consequently, he kills his father in cold blood, and boy has a sigh of relief on acting upon the piece of advice made by the conscience. To conclude, it becomes evident that the school of thought following stream of consciousness in its work shares many similarities in the writings. All these writers observe delicacy and neatness of mind and environment all around them. All the writers of this school of thought complete the story with the help of least number of characters. The works of this literary genre expresses the feelings growing in human breast. These authors keep human psychology in view and expose the most private and personal feelings through the help of soliloquy. Works Cited Evans, Ifor. “A Short History of English Literature.” Penguin Books Sixth Edition 2004 282-283 Faulkner, William. “Barn Burning” 1980 Retrieved from http://www.archive.org/stream/collectedstories030393mbp/collectedstories030393mbp_djvu.txt Silver, Brenda R “Virginia Woolf icon.” Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1999. Read More