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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
Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Mysterious Confusion:
Ralph, on his honeymoon to Italy with Undine, quite enjoys relaxing and enjoying the Sienese air. As he lies back on a couch, the narrator begins to describe his thoughts, which becomes a stream of consciousness:
As he lay there, fragments of past states of emotion, fugitive felicities of thought and sensation, rose and floated on the surface of his thoughts. It was one of those moments when the accumulated impressions of his life converge on heart and brain, elucidating, en-lacing each other, in a mysterious confusion of beauty. [...] Words were flashing like brilliant birds through the boughs overhead; he had but to wave his magic wand to have them flutter down to him. Only they were so beautiful up there, weaving their fantastic flights against the blue, that it was pleasanter, for the moment, to watch them and let the wand lie.
Wharton uses streams of consciousness like this one often with Ralph because his character is defined by his overly thoughtful, sensitive nature. In this instance, though, the stream of consciousness at first does not reveal anything specific about what Ralph is thinking. Ralph's thoughts, even if the reader doesn't know what they mean, are still quite beautiful, and the narrator depicts them in the abstract, twisting and turning against each other. This is a common use of a stream of consciousness: merely to portray, aesthetically, a character's thought process.
The beauty of the thoughts in Ralph's mind also explains why he is so averse to writing. This stream of consciousness shows the reader that Ralph does have ideas that he could write about, the words that "flash like brilliant birds" above him. But he finds that his ideas are "so beautiful up there, weaving their fantastic flights against the blue" that he prefers "letting his wand lie" and merely watching them. In other words, Ralph finds that he enjoys simply thinking about literature and history so much that he feels writing would ruin it. Only through the revealing process of the stream of consciousness can the reader gain this perspective on Ralph's character.
Chapter 22
Explanation and Analysis—The Fact of Having Cried:
Ralph snaps awake, alone in New York, at the beginning of Chapter 22. His physical and mental health are in free-fall as his marriage with Undine falls apart. He moves through life in a daze, as the narrator depicts the anxious state of his mind using stream-of-consciousness narration:
When he woke, the first thing he remembered was the fact of having cried.
He could not think how he had come to be such a fool. He hoped to heaven no one had seen him. He supposed that he must have been worrying about the unfinished piece of work at the office: where was it, by the way, he wondered? Why—where he had left it the day before, of course! What a ridiculous thing to worry about—but it seemed to follow him about like a dog...
Here, Ralph's mental condition is shown through the use of a stream of consciousness. The first line of the chapter puts the reader directly into his mind, through a very specific but recognizable feeling: remembering "the fact of having cried." Poor Ralph cannot contain his emotions and has been slipping in and out of sleep and tears. The narrator represents Ralph's racing thoughts through punctuation and clipped sentence structures. He chastises himself over and over, showing his anxiety and his deteriorated self-image after the collapse of his marriage. He is also more worried than ever about his work, as he knows he must write but cannot bring himself to it. In his fragile state, he feels this worry following him like a dog.
Throughout the narrative, the novel shows the reader Ralph's mental state in this way while rarely affording the reader this knowledge of the inner thoughts of any other character. The important part of Ralph's character is his emotional, fragile disposition, so the narrator repeatedly gives the reader a special glimpse into the workings of his mind.
Related Themes:
