Eng426 20th century english literature

Stream-of-Consciousness Technique

“Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness” (Woolf,qtd in McNellie 1988). This point of view resembles human thought and involves recording the thought processes as they arise in the mind of the various individuals. This technique enables the reader to be close to the character’s thoughts and motives than what obtains in the traditional novel, for the latter describes a character from the outside only superficially, while the stream of consciousness shows each character as a living and thinking individual who is actively and noticeably developing as the novel progresses.

2. Convoluted and Fragmented Plots

“… they made its sentences as slippery as the movements of the human mind; they let plot go random, told their stories from changing points of view, and began or ended them abruptly” (Matz: 9). The idea of oneness and togetherness in form, law, order or sequence is challenged in the face of modernism. Events are not necessarily narrated in an order or sequence. There are narrative disjunctions or sudden shifts from one character’s consciousness to another.

2. Focus on Characterisation

Modernist literature is more interested in the individual and the consciousness of the character than the physical surrounding or society. So that instead of describing a scene, a place or the weather, modernist writing concentrates on individual characters, showing them as being more important than things that could be seen or touched. They show how the individual is able to adapt to changes in the world around them. In her essay, “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown,” Woolf posits that the foundation of good fiction is characterisation and nothing else, and that the character’s inner life should be presented as it is instead of burdening the narrative with details of the environment.

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