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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
Book I, Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Oh My Husband:
Amid Chapter 9’s hushed collection of voices, Cry, the Beloved Country gives readers a brief glimpse into stream of consciousness. Paton drifts among the unnamed residents of Shanty Town, who quibble for housing and lament about their conditions. Mrs. Seme is no exception:
But I do not say stay well. I do not care if they stay well or ill. And nothing goes well with me. I am tired and lonely. Oh my husband, why did we leave the land of our people? There is not much there, but it is better than here. There is not much food there, but it is shared by all together. If all are poor, it is not so bad to be poor. And it is pleasant by the river, and while you wash your clothes the water runs over the stones, and the wind cools you. Two weeks from today, that is the day of the moving. Come my husband, let us get the planks and the tins and the sacks and the poles. I do not like the place where we are.
The narrator slips into Mrs. Seme’s immediate thoughts, which come unfiltered and scattered. “Nothing goes well with me,” she admits to herself—only to plead homesickness to her husband and then long for the river with its cool wind and running water. Confused and distraught, this internal dialogue replicates the sense of fragmentation caused by pre-apartheid racial policies. The thoughts seem almost as confused and chaotic as Chapter 12 itself, in which unspecified voices and unknown conversations overlay each other. One woman explains that her family is “always hungry” while another pleads for a doctor and still fearfully appraise their lodgers. Through stream of consciousness, Paton keeps conveys the sense of disorder and desperation that prevails across the Shanty Towns. He transposes the trauma of redlining, bus segregations, and mass poverty onto the characters’ inners states.
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