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Definition of Stream of Consciousness
Stream of consciousness is a style or technique of writing that tries to capture the natural flow of a character's extended thought process, often by incorporating sensory impressions, incomplete ideas, unusual syntax... read full definition
Stream of consciousness is a style or technique of writing that tries to capture the natural flow of a character's extended thought process, often by incorporating... read full definition
Stream of consciousness is a style or technique of writing that tries to capture the natural flow of a character's... read full definition
Chapter 1, Part 3
Explanation and Analysis—Psychological Insight:
Stream-of-consciousness narration is one of the most famous techniques in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. This technique helps represent the characters' inner thoughts and perceptions. It appears most notably in Chapters 1 and 5 in order to provide insight into the mind of Stephen Dedalus. In Chapter 1, Part 3, the narrator describes Stephen's reaction to hearing the chapel bell:
How beautiful and sad that was! How beautiful the words were where they said Bury me in the old churchyard! A tremor passed over his body. How sad and how beautiful! He wanted to cry quietly but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music. The bell! The bell! Farewell! O farewell!
In this scene, Stephen listens to the tolling of a bell while singing a song that Brigid taught him. The narration is often interrupted by Stephen's thoughts about the beauty of the bell. "A tremor passed over his body" is a description of external events, but his subsequent exclamations—"The bell! The bell!"—represent his internal thoughts and feelings.
Another example of stream-of-consciousness narration appears in Chapter 2 Part 5:
He had tried to build a breakwater of order and elegance against the sordid tide of life without him and to dam up, by rules of conduct and active interests and new filial relations, the powerful recurrence of the tides within him. Useless. From without as from within the water had flowed over his barriers: their tides began once more to jostle fiercely above the crumbled mole.
Here, Stephen laments the "sordid tide of life" in Dublin. The first sentence describes his internal mental processes, but the second sentence (which is, notably, one word) represents his own thought of how "useless" it was to aspire to anything higher than earthly pursuits in the city. His spending spree does nothing to improve his happiness; it rather makes him realize that money does not necessarily bring satisfaction or stability. In this scene and many others, stream of consciousness permits insight into Stephen's mind, and it is important to literature more generally because it exemplified the Modernist era Joyce helped popularize.
Related Themes:
Chapter 2, Part 5
Explanation and Analysis—Psychological Insight:
Stream-of-consciousness narration is one of the most famous techniques in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. This technique helps represent the characters' inner thoughts and perceptions. It appears most notably in Chapters 1 and 5 in order to provide insight into the mind of Stephen Dedalus. In Chapter 1, Part 3, the narrator describes Stephen's reaction to hearing the chapel bell:
How beautiful and sad that was! How beautiful the words were where they said Bury me in the old churchyard! A tremor passed over his body. How sad and how beautiful! He wanted to cry quietly but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music. The bell! The bell! Farewell! O farewell!
In this scene, Stephen listens to the tolling of a bell while singing a song that Brigid taught him. The narration is often interrupted by Stephen's thoughts about the beauty of the bell. "A tremor passed over his body" is a description of external events, but his subsequent exclamations—"The bell! The bell!"—represent his internal thoughts and feelings.
Another example of stream-of-consciousness narration appears in Chapter 2 Part 5:
He had tried to build a breakwater of order and elegance against the sordid tide of life without him and to dam up, by rules of conduct and active interests and new filial relations, the powerful recurrence of the tides within him. Useless. From without as from within the water had flowed over his barriers: their tides began once more to jostle fiercely above the crumbled mole.
Here, Stephen laments the "sordid tide of life" in Dublin. The first sentence describes his internal mental processes, but the second sentence (which is, notably, one word) represents his own thought of how "useless" it was to aspire to anything higher than earthly pursuits in the city. His spending spree does nothing to improve his happiness; it rather makes him realize that money does not necessarily bring satisfaction or stability. In this scene and many others, stream of consciousness permits insight into Stephen's mind, and it is important to literature more generally because it exemplified the Modernist era Joyce helped popularize.
Related Themes:
