Virginia Woolf was one of the first authors to utilize the stream of consciousness narrative during its emergence in the early twentieth century. This literary device attempts to capture the realistic thought processes of the human mind in order to create a more true-to-life fiction, compared to the traditional plot and narrative. In her 1927 novel, “To the Lighthouse”, Virginia Woolf uses the stream of consciousness narrative in order to create a more intimate and relatable experience between her readers and the characters in her book.
The stream of consciousness narrative emerged out of writers’ frustration with the “cookie-cutter” plot and narrative that had become so prevalent in modern society. Virginia Woolf’s illustrates this grievance in her essay, “Modern Fiction”:
Admitting the vagueness which afflicts all criticism of novels, let us hazard the opinion that for us at this moment the form of fiction most in vogue more often misses than secures the thing we seek. Whether we call it life or spirit, truth or reality, this, the essential thing, has moved off, or on, and refuses to be contained any longer in such ill-fitting vestments as we provide.” (Modern 2431).
With this in mind, Woolf and other writers began to emulate the raw, uncensored, and unorganized thought processes of an ordinary person in their writing. This new narrative style allowed writers to focus on character development and less on plot points. This is evident in the three parts of To the Lighthouse. The first and the third part do not appear to contain major plot points, but rather, they showcase the characters’ maturation and their dynamic relationships through the stream of consciousness narrative. The second part, Time Passes, is unique because it...
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...experience in which she feels one with the sea, “ And as she lost consciousness of outer things, … her mind kept throwing up from its depths, scenes, and names, and sayings, and memories, and ideas, like a fountain…” (Lighthouse 159). The experience that Lily is thinking about is perfectly mirroring one of the few experiences that we have as humans that is hard to put into words. One cannot express these feelings of wonder in a few simple words, or as a far off narrator. But when the reader is put inside the character’s head through the stream of consciousness narrative, the reader knows exactly the sensation the character is experiencing.
Works Cited
The Norton Anthology of English
Literature: The Major Authors. Ed. E. Donaldson, Hallet Smith, Robert Adams,
Samuel Monk, George Ford, David Daiches. New York: Norton & Company, 2006.
2411-2412. Print.
I frankly confess that I have, as a general thing, but little enjoyment of it, and that it has never seemed to me to be, as it were, a first-rate literary form. . . . But it is apt to spoil two good things – a story and a moral, a meaning and a form; and the taste for it is responsible for a large part of the forcible-feeding writing that has been inflicted upon the world. The only cases in whi...
...’ (21). These rhetoric questions force readers to stand on her side and to ponder in her direction. She compares the contents of the twentieth-century chapters in current books to ‘a modern-art museum’ (22), which ironically and humorously criticizes the fancy design of the current books. She also directly quotes the original texts to show the changes of current books such as a paragraph from Sellers’ book ‘As It Happened’.
Stillinger, Jack, Deidre Lynch, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D. New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.
My views closely relate to those of what Cohen says because we have no right to intervene with the animal world or project our view of morality onto them, especially when it leads to a discrimination of rights. However this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t protect animals or care for them. We do these things for animals not based on their rights or our obligations, but because they feel just like we do.
McMillan, Eric. “Monstrously bad novel strikes a chord.” Greatest Literature of All Time: The Works. Editor Eric. 1999-2013. Web. 6 March 2014.
Written stories differ in numerous ways, but most of them have one thing in common; they all have a narrator that, on either rare occasions or more regularly, help to tell the story. Sometimes, the narrator is a vital part of the story since without him or her, it would not be possible to tell the story in the same way, and sometimes, the narrator has a very small role in the story. However, he or she is always there, and to compare how different authors use, and do not use, this outside perspective writing tool, a comparison between Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno, Henry James’ Daisy Miller, and David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly will be done.
Abrams, M.H. and Greenblatt, Stephen eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Seventh Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001.
Kennedy, X J., and Dana Gioia. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Sixth ed. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers, 1995. Print.
At the thrust of Virginia Woolf's writing was the creation of reality. “The center or meeting place for experience was, to Virginia Woolf, the moment—a cross-section of consciousness in which perception and feelings conv...
Virginia Woolf begins her memoir Moments of Being with a conscious attempt to write for her readers. While writing her life story, however, she begins to turn inwards and she becomes enmeshed in her writing. By focusing on her thoughts surrounding the incidents in her life instead of the incidents themselves, she unconsciously loses sight of her outward perspective and writes for herself. Her memoir becomes a loose series of declarations of her beliefs connected only by her wandering train of thought. Although Moments of Being deals largely with her conjectures, she is not trying to convince the reader of these beliefs' validity since she is so absorbed in the act of writing. What begins as an outwardly focused memoir evolves into Virginia Woolf's exploration of her thoughts and feelings.
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. 1927. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1951. pp 131-133.
In some of his more difficult passages, Faulkner is using the technique called "stream-of-consciousness." Pioneered by the Irish writer James Joyce, the most extreme versions of this device give the reader direct access to the full contents of the characters' minds, however confused, fragmented, and even contradictory those contents may be.
Novels for Students. Presenting Analysis, Context and Criticism on Commonly Studied Novels. Detroit, MI: Gale Group, 1999. Print.
Lily definitely undergoes a transformation, from being unable to make sense of her painting to an artist who completes her painting, through which she finally establishes her homosexual identity aesthetically through art. From “the Lighthouse had become almost invisible, had melted away into a blue haze, and the effort of looking at it and the effort of thinking him landing there, which both seemed to be one and the same effort, had stretched her body and mind to the utmost. Ah, but she was relieved” (169), Woolf highlights Lily’s enthusiasm when she was able to eliminate Mr Ramsay from her physical, emotional and psychological realm. By mentioning that the Lighthouse has melted away, Woolf metaphorically emphasizes the deconstruction of the patriarchal conditions through which Lily has come to terms with her homosexual identity. Lily clearly feels liberated and independent, although after undergoing great amount of emotional and psychological torment where she suppressed her homosexual desires in the face of patriarchy. By expressing and figuring out her emotional and psychological turmoil through art and her painting, Lily is able to visualise her immense independence autonomous of the patriarchal conditions. Hence, Lily finally asserts a masculine ambiance similar to the men in patriarchal order, where she can eventually be who she wants to be without any external pressure, particularly from male hegemony, that tells her how she is expected to act like a woman. Thus, Lily does not simply advocate gender equality, but radically promote acceptance of homosexuality as the truer reality of woman empowerment and
In A Room of One's Own the narrator begins an exploration of women in literature. She attempts to answer many questions regarding women. The first being why is literature about women written by men. She also critiques the scholarship of the great men of literature.