Stream of consciousness writing

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For other uses, see Stream of consciousness (psychology)

In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a literary technique that seeks to portray an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her sensory reactions to external occurrences. Stream-of-consciousness writing is strongly associated with the modernist movement. The introduction of the term to describe literature, transferred from psychology, is attributed to May Sinclair.

1 Literature
2 Other media
3 Notes
4 References
5 See also

[edit] Literature

Stream-of-consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative (and at times--dissociative) leaps in syntax and punctuation that can make the prose difficult to follow, tracing a character's fragmentary thoughts and sensory feelings. Stream of consciousness and interior monologue are distinguished from dramatic monologue, where the speaker is addressing an audience or a third person, and is used chiefly in poetry or drama. In stream of consciousness, the speaker's thought processes are more often depicted as overheard in the mind (or addressed to oneself) and is primarily a fictional device. The term was first introduced to the field of literary studies from that of psychology by philosopher and psychologist William James, brother of the influential writer Henry James.

Several notable works employing stream of consciousness are:

Édouard Dujardin's Les Lauriers sont coupés (1888)
Knut Hamsun's Hunger (1890)
Arthur Schnitzler's Leutnant Gustl (1901)
Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (1913-27)
T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage (1915-28)
James Joyce's
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
- Ulysses (1922) - in particular Molly Bloom's Soliloquy
- Finnegans Wake (1932)
Virginia Woolf's
- Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
- To the Lighthouse (1927)
- The Waves (1931)
Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf (1927)
William Faulkner's
- The Sound and the Fury (1929)
- As I Lay Dying (1930)
Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song (1932)
William Styron's Lie Down in Darkness (1951)
Samuel Beckett's 'trilogy' :
- Molloy (1951)
- Malone Dies (1951)
- The Unnamable(1953)
Sam Selvon's The Lonely Londonders (1956)
Jack Kerouac's
- On the Road(1957)
- Tristessa
Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
Everything is Illuminated - Johnathan Safran Foer (2002)
William Burroughs's Naked Lunch (1959)
Jerzy Andrzejewski's Gates to Paradise (1960)
J. D. Salinger's Seymour: An Introduction (1963)
Julio Cortázar's Rayuela (Hopscotch) (1963)
Hubert Selby Jr.'s
- Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964)^{[citation needed]}
- Requiem for a Dream (1978)^{[citation needed]}
Oğuz Atay's Tutunamayanlar (The Disconnected) (1972)
Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea's Illuminatus! (1975)
Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren (1975)
Nadine Gordimer's July's People (1981)
Bahram Bayzai's Death of Yazdgerd (1982)
Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy (1992)
Will Christopher Baer's Phineas Poe trilogy (2005))
- Kiss Me, Judas
- Hell's Half Acre
- Penny Dreadful (parts)
Clarice Lispector's whole work.

The technique has been parodied, for example, by David Lodge in the final chapter of The British Museum Is Falling Down.

[edit] Other media

The technique is not specifically confined to literary sources, and has been used loosely to describe either separately or in combination with other media. For instance, Travis Trent sings unwritten stream of consciousness lyrics on five of the six songs on the album Stories: His, Mine, Others.

[edit] Stand-up comedy

British comedian Ross Noble's performances take the form of a stream of consciousness with partial interaction with the audience, with the effect of him going off in tangents during the whole show.

[edit] Cinema and sketch comedy

Terrence Malick is notable for using a stream of consciousness voice over for one or several of his characters in all of his four films to date. His characters usually express thoughts of existentialism and are deeply rooted in philosophical matters.

The movie The Weather Man with Nicolas Cage presents a scene where the main character narrates his line of thought when going off to buy tartar sauce. The use of stream of consciousness in this scene has the purpose of explaining why the character forgot to buy the tartar sauce.

The movie Adaptation., written by Charlie Kaufman, starts with an internal monologue from the main character, who is also called Charlie Kaufman. The monologue shows he suffers from a writer's block, and is by association filled with random thoughts of failure. [1]

[edit] Television

Terry Gilliam made cut-out animations as a Python for the show Monty Python's Flying Circus, which linked together sketches using stream of consciousness.

The NBC sitcom Scrubs is presented with the protagonist's thoughts heard by the viewer as a stream-of-consciousness voiceover playing the role of narration; it often goes off on seemingly random tangents—much as any person's thoughts tend to wander if not focused on something specific. The viewer also frequently sees the protagonist's imagination at work.

The ABC sitcom, Wonder Years is also presented with the protagonist's thoughts heard by the viewer as a stream-of-consciousness voiceover playing the role of narration.

Stand-up comedians Dennis Miller and Richard Lewis perform fast-paced monologues containing pop culture references which are often described as stream-of-consciousness.

[edit] World Wide Web

One example of a website that uses the technique is Cognitec/3rd Force, which is the progressive work of an anonymous author known only as "HC." The site began in the mid 1990s as a series of bizarre and sardonic original passages which was "spoofed" to look like prominent web portals of the early Dot com boom. For example, the now defunct "Pathfinder" site (now simply the Time Inc. portal [2]) was parodied as "Crapfinder," the "New York Times" became the "New Times York."

Because of the site's extensive use of the literary method, transitory and seemingly-unrelated themes became connected through hyperlinks. These seemed to further reflect the free-flowing thought process of the strangely prolific author. It was later revealed that much of the content consisted of excerpts from the metafictional novel MFU (ISBN 188640402X) [3]. The novel's desultory narrative structure and breadth of material was sufficient for creating years worth of related material in the form of multiple parodies, faux news reports, and essays, as well as providing prospective readers of the novel an opportunity to "sample" the book. Most of the novel was subsequently released as either readable or searchable on-line [4].

Many online forums have sections for so-called "Off-Topic" discussions. Threads in these forums tend to loosely follow stream-of-consciousness simply by virtue of the fact that multiple people express their own thought processes without hesitation of retribution. This perspective is, of course, controversial since traditional stream-of-consciousness is the result of one person's writing alone.

A relatively new website, http://chainofthoughts.com conforms to the stream of consciousness style of writing using tag clouds to shift readers through various seemingly unrelated pages. Following the Virginia Tech massacre the website was used as a place of semi-anonymous mourning and was highlighted on the BBC website.^[1]

[edit] Music

At least two of the songs on Van Morrison's acclaimed album "Astral Weeks" were said to be stream of consciousness by the composer. "'Madame George' just came right out. The song is just a stream of consciousness thing, as is 'Cyprus Avenue'. Both these songs just came right out. I didn't even think about what I was writing."^[2]

R.E.M.'s song "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" features rapid-fire lyrics that are described as stream of consciousness.

Bob Dylan's songs "Like a Rolling Stone", "Desolation Row" & "Subterranean Homesick Blues", the latter of which was said by R.E.M. to have influenced their song above.

Singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala from the Mars Volta and At the Drive-In often writes in a highly abstract style, which could be considered stream of consciousness.

Bruce Springsteen's first two albums, "Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J." and "The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle" feature the stream of consciousness technique in a majority of the lyrics, such as Springsteen's first single, 'Blinded by the Light'.

Dream Theater has an instrumental song titled "Stream of Consciousness" in which the song flows openly based on a single chord progression. The song is believed to be written as an example of stream of consciousness.

Spock's Beard a progressive rock band, has a song titled "Stream of Unconsciousness" The name is most likely a parody of the Dream Theater song.

Many songs on the album The Holy Bible by Manic Street Preachers are written in this style.

John Frusciante used Stream of Consciousness on his debut solo album 'Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt'

Thom Yorke of Radiohead frequently writes songs in this style, for instance "A Wolf at the Door" from their 2003 album Hail to the Thief.

Karl Hyde of the UK electronic band Underworld is know to frequently use the method.^[3]^[4] It is especially apparent in the songs "Pearl's Girl", "Born Slippy .NUXX", and "Cowgirl".

Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire"

Rap has many examples, such as:

Hip Hop group Das EFX is especially known for employing this technique in their lyrics, constantly shifting from one subject to another while rapping.

Rapper Eminem has also used the technique in his song Rain Man, parodying the character in the film Rain Man on his album, Encore.

Hip hop artist Ghostface Killah is well known for his stream of consciousness rapping, a style largely his own that utilizes complicated and constantly shifting subject matter to illustrate his mindset and viewpoint.