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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
10. The Night Chanter, February 20
Explanation and Analysis—Racing Mind:
Momaday uses stream of consciousness as a motif in the novel to give the reader a sense of characters' inner, anxious worlds. One clear example occurs in Chapter 10, when Ben Benally drunkenly delves into his memories:
Let's see...let's see; Manygoats gave me three dollars, and I bought a bottle of wine. I wonder who that great big girl was. I have two dollars and eleven cents. I wish I had some more of that wine. I wish I had another bottle of wine...and a dollar bill...and two dimes...and two pennies.
Ei yei! with a name like that, and she had dimes...dimes on her shoes.
Ben is thinking about how much money he has to spend on alcohol, but mixed in with his calculations and his desire for wine are memories both recent and old: he remembers earlier in the night wondering "who that great big girl was," and the thought of the coins also reminds him of a girl who made an impression on him in his youth. The way he bounces around between past and present gives the reader the sense of being inside his head. Rather than telling the reader a linear story that starts with Abel's arrival in Los Angeles and ends with his departure, Momaday offers the reader a glimpse of how the story lives inside Ben's mind, mixed up with his own autobiography.
As a literary technique, stream of consciousness allowed modernist writers such as James Joyce to expand the limits of storytelling and emphasize the way people experience the world through a filter of past experiences and seemingly irrelevant details. Every person, this technique illuminates, has a unique subjective reality that is inflected by everything they have ever experienced. Momaday has cited Joyce as one of his influences. By borrowing this narrative technique, Momaday emphasizes his characters' complexity and uniqueness. None of them fit neatly into stereotypes. Even Ben Benally, who seems to blend into Los Angeles in a way Abel never can, has strange and winding thoughts that are determined by the life he and he alone has led. On the one hand, the novel invites readers to appreciate Ben's individuality. On the other hand, the tone of this entire chapter is anxious: Ben drifts along alone and at the mercy of his thoughts and memories.
Momaday also uses stream of consciousness to delve into Francisco's mind, especially when Francisco is dying but also at earlier points. Francisco's mind often bends toward memories of running, hunting, or otherwise using his body to participate in his people's ceremonies and traditions. He misses the time when his body was stronger and he could run instead of remembering. As Francisco dies and his stream of consciousness fizzles out, Abel suddenly realizes that he must join the dawn runners. Abel's commitment to running seems to break him out of his own anxious cycle. The book thus presents physical running, and the full participation in the physical world that is part of many American Indian traditions, as the antidote to the racing mind that still plagues Ben Benally.
Related Themes:
