Use of Stream of Consciousness in Faulkner and Salinger

Use of Stream of Consciousness in Faulkner and Salinger

How does an author paint a vivid picture of a character’s thoughts? Stream of consciousness, an elaborate, somewhat complicated technique of writing, is a successful method of getting inside of a character’s head. It is not only seeing their actions and environment, it is also understanding their entire thought process through what seems to be a chain reaction.

While a character is performing actions and taking in surroundings through senses, thought flows through his or her mind mimicking the mind of a real person. Faulkner deliberately avoids using punctuation usage to encourage the selection of images and random recollections. Indirect interior monologue is interior monologue in the third person. (1, 210) The term interior monologue is sometimes used interchangeably with “stream of consciousness,” although not some claim the words are not the same exact thing. These people claim that “stream of consciousness” is a kind of fiction. It is a narrative technique that is the multi-faceted movement of rational and irrational thoughts and ideas not constrained by syntax, grammar, and sensible transitions. There are two types: indirect and direct interior monologue. In indirect interior monologue, the narrator sometimes interjects flow of ideas (1, 209). It is a combination of successive impressions in the present interjected by related thoughts, past experiences, and recollections (1, 210). They consider interior monologue a type of the fiction, as opposed to free indirect discourse and simple first-person narration. (15, 217) There is a tendency for people to consider stream of consciousness to be a kind of fiction that represents the consciousness of a characte...

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