Stream of Consciousness - Narrative technique in 'To the Lighthouse'

                Oxford Dictionary of literary terms (writing) suggests, that “they can also distinguish psychologically and literarily. In a psychological sense, stream of consciousness is the subject-matter, while interior monologue is the technique for presenting it”. And for literature ….”while an interior monologue always present a character’s thought ‘directly’, without the apparent intervention of a summarizing and selecting narrator, it does not necessarily mingle them with impression and perception, nor does it necessarily violate the norms of grammar, or logic-but the stream of consciousness technique also does one or both these thing”.

Etymology:

                The metaphor of stream of consciousness was coined by American philosopher and psychologist William James in his book ‘The principles of psychology’.

The contribution of Virginia Woolf: The stream of consciousness

She realized that it is not enough to express only outside reality by regarding as the use of one technique. She created the inner side of personality with experimental forms in her novel. She shows not only the mirror of reality integrating with society, but also the picture of people’s mind. She interested both the inner and outer life simultaneously. She more interested in the inner than in the outer life of a character. The main point that she wanted to show us is to demonstrate the soul or ‘psyche’ truthfully and realistically by using the stream of consciousness technique.

                Interior monologue: the human psyche is not a simple entity functioning logically and rationally. That’s why there is the interior monologue. Interior monologue is the silent speech flowing from the mind of a given character and introduces us directly into the internal life of the character without the author’s adding his or her own perspective

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      1.       Direct interior monologue:- the character speaks neither or another character within the story nor the reader, and the author either never interferes or does so very subtly. The direct interior monologue most nearly approaches a true stream of consciousness effect. I.e.in the last forty-five pages of Ulysses, James Joyce uses direct interior monologue to trace his character.

      2.       Indirect interior monologue: it uses second or third person pronouns and the author appear less distant, guiding the reader through the unspoken thoughts of the character’s conscious. Thus, indirect interior monologue produces writing with just a tad more coherence. Woolf makes frequent use of this method in her novels, Mrs. Dalloway and To the lighthouse.

There are also two more conventional methods of writing the stream of consciousness. Which writers have adapted to serve their purposes.

      1.       Author uses narration and description to present the thought of the character’s mind, and the reader always remains positioned within the character’s psyche. i.e. Dorothy Richardson’s ‘pilgrimage’.

     2.       In the soliloquy, the character translates his or her thoughts into verbal speech spoken only to him/her self. Silent soliloquy acknowledges and, thus, purposes to communicate ideas to that audience, creating more coherent and ordered writing. i.e. William Faulkner’s ‘As I lay Dying’.
                In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode that seeks to portray an individual’s point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character’s thought process, either in a lose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her action.
               James tendency to merge emotional sensation together(he belonged, even at the age of six..) this is followed, in mid-sentence, by a return into James consciousness, as we see that the picture of the refrigerator is ‘endowed’ from him with heavenly bliss. There is a short sentence describing the heavenly bliss (the image of the refrigerator is ‘fringed with joy), and this is succeeded by a list of similar items or experiences (‘the well-barrow’; ’rooks cawing’), which have such resonance in his mind that they have become a ‘private code’. In the middle of the sentence there is another change of perspective, this time an externalized image (how he looks while he is cutting out the picture), which is followed by a further shift in viewpoint, as Mrs. Ramsay, watching him, pictures her son as an important grown man.
              There is something so extraordinary going on here that once we have accepted Woolf’s technique, and are able to understand it instinctively, we may simply enjoy the beautiful felicities of phrasing, or marvel at her eye for evocative detail. We may not think about the incredible skill, and the remarkable originality, of this way of writing that changes course in the middle of sentence, while incorporating a quesi-objective point of view. We may also fail to wonder why Woolf writes in such an unusual way.

     Stream of consciousness and dialogue in ‘To the Lighthouse’:
                      Dialogues in Woolf’s novel have served against one of the major themes of the novel. We see Mr. Ramsay’s unhappiness when he realizes that he had already reached the prime of his life, we see Lily try to create a painting which she knows will remain, but worries where. Lily yearns to understand Mrs. Ramsay beyond from what she is superficially perceived by everyone. From early in the novel it can be seen that Lily admires Mrs. Ramsay. Lily strives to be like her, and even by the end of the novel with Mrs. Ramsay’s passing, lily still feels inadequate and feels as though, unlike Mrs. Ramsay who comforted her husband, lily cannot do the same for Mr. Ramsay who so desperately needs encouragement. Lily wishes to know Mrs. Ramsay; lily yearns to know find out what it takes to genuinely understand and know another. Lily wishes to know what it would be like to be “waters poured into one jar, inextricably the same”. Lily not only wishes to know how it is possible to gain such intimacy with another being, but how it would be to feel unified. This can be seen with lily when she wonders if there is any way to know the truth within someone:

             “Sitting on the floor with her arms round Mrs. Ramsay’s knees, close as she could get, smiling to think that Mrs. Ramsay would never know the reason of that pressure, she imagined how in the chamber of the mind and heart of the women who was physically, touching her, were stood, like the treasures in the tombs of kings, tablets bearing sacred inspiration, which if one could spell them out, would teach one everything, but they would never be offered openly, never made public. What art was there, known to love or cunning by which one pressed through into secret chambers? What device for becoming like waters poured into one jar, inextricably the same, and one with the object one adored? Could the body achieve, or the mind, subtly mingling in the intricate passage of the brain? Or the heart? Could loving, as people called it, make her and Mrs. Ramsay one? For it was not knowledge but unity that she desired, not inscription on tablets, nothing could be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself, which is knowledge, she had thought, learning her head on Mrs. Ramsay’s knee”.

           Though Woolf’s uses stream of consciousness readers can trust lily’s thought and see her innermost thoughts. Lily’s thought process and feelings, just like the other characters in Woolf’s novel honestly reflect the way human being reflect.

“How then, she had asked herself, did one know one thing or another thing about people, sealed as they were? Only like a bee, drawn by some sweetness or sharpness in the air intangible to touch or taste, one haunted the dome-shaped lives, ranged the wastes of the air over to countries of the world alone, and then haunted the hives with the murmurs and their stirring; the hives, which were people”.

             These lines addressed lily’s login to understand Mrs. Ramsay and humanities longing to understand each other. Humans are like like bees; they belong to only their own hive. But what they long to only their own hive.  We, the bees and humans are reminded by bees’ buzzes and the appeal of vibrancy that the attractiveness of knowledge, the longing for intimacy, the sweet smell of honey and the bitterness of knowing that these desires are insatiable and unattainable.

Indirect interior monologue in ‘To the Lighthouse’:

                In the case of indirect interior monologue, the omniscient author’s continuous intervention is essential to guide the reader in reading the character’s mind. The use of frequent parentheses is her novels which exerts severed functions. Parentheses can be signals of digression and of simultaneity as this one, “Teaching and preaching human power, lily suspected”.

                I respect you in every atom; you are not vain; you are entirely impersonal;

               You have neither wife nor child (without any sexual feeling, she longed to

               Cherish that loneliness), you live for science (invduntarily, section of potatoes rose before     her eyes); praise would be an insult to you; generous, pure-hearted, heroic man!

                The narrative is thrown backwards and forwards between lily’s voices. Lily’s dwelling on the austerity of Bankes’ life indicates not only Bankes’ desire for solitude, but also hers –and at the same time shows her resistance to her own loneliness. She wants at once to extend and to limit, to see more of Bankes and less of herself. This conflict is represented in the simultaneous development of two registers: the succession of main clauses inscribing lily’s voice and the little interruption of the parentheses, at the corner of lily’s eye.

Free association in ‘To the Lighthouse’:

                Three factors control the association:

• Memory- which is its basis
• Sense- which guide it
• Imagination- which determines its elasticity

Lily Briscoe, the artist, while watching the sea, feels her mind ebb and flow with it. When she paints the picture by the seaside, her mind exhibits an exuberance of vivid picture and sights: she seems to see Mrs. Ramsay and later she sees somebody in the drawing room set an odd-shaped triangular shadow over the step. We may trace her free association as follows:
Looking at the sea

• Thinking of her picture sitting down and examining with her brush a little colony of plantations, seeing Mr. Carmichael
• Thinking of Mrs. Ramsay stirring the plain taints with her brush
• Thinking of Charles Tansley rising a little mountain for the ants to clime over
• Thinking of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay screwing up her eyes and standing book

Conclusion:  

                Woolf’s presentation of the character’s interior monologue is not only coherent in meaning, but also conventional in appearance. Her use of indirect interior monologue allows the narrator to reveal the characters flow of thoughts and takes the reader into the consciousness of the characters in the novel. And free association makes the readers step into the inner worlds of her character by their feelings, thoughts, memories etc. so there is no question that Virginia Woolf is at her best when she is writing the conscious, subconscious and even unconscious part of her character.