Previous
Situational Irony
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 15: Piltchard & Wren
Explanation and Analysis—Boom-Boom-Boom:
Yossarian, in Chapter 15, flying his plane over Bologna and trying to drop his bomb, is taking heavy bullet fire. This is the first instance in the book of sustained armed conflict. But there is not a wide description of the battle at large. Instead, Heller's third-person narrator shows readers the action though Yossarian's reactions to the situation, or stream of consciousness, with vivid imagery of his perceptions and reactions:
He had been lulled, lured, and trapped, and there was nothing to do but sit there like an idiot and watch the ugly black puffs smashing up to kill him. [...] He was trembling steadily as the plane crept ahead. He could hear the hollow boom-boom-boom-boom of the flak pounding all around him in overlapping measures of four, the sharp, piercing crack! of a single shell exploding suddenly close by. His head was bursting with a thousand dissonant impulses as he prayed for the bombs to drop. He wanted to sob.
The description of the battle is mediated through Yossarian's emotional reactions to the situation. The reader is given a particular and specific view of Yossarian's feelings: he had to "sit there like an idiot" as he was shot at. The sounds of the battle are given to readers as Yossarian hears them. The reader understands that these booms and cracks ring even louder in Yossarian's head than they do across the battlefield, because of his terror and inability to act, stuck in his plane. In the final line of this despondent paragraph, readers see the full breadth of Yossarian's consciousness, all the "thousand different impulses" in his head. By presenting the battle to the reader through Yossarian's perception, the narrator also gives a close look at Yossarian's thoughts, as the reader experiences the battle inside of the terrified pilot's head.
The imagery in this passage is also rich and complex. The bullets are rendered as "ugly black puffs." It is a mark of the anxiety and terror of the situation that a word like "puff" appears grotesque and intimidating in this context. The scene's auditory imagery, its "booms" and "cracks," is simple but effective. And the scene uses what might be called tactile imagery, as the reader can feel Yossarian's head "bursting" with all his fearful thoughts.
