THE STREAM OF CONCSIOUSNESS NOVEL
M. G. Narasimha Murthy
The period between the two world wars saw the emergence of a new form of fiction. The novelists of the time were deeply interested in the contemporary psycho-analytical theories and they tried to explore the various aspects of human consciousness. Many of them felt that with the traditional literary techniques they could not give the fullest expression to their experiences. Believing that repression of healthy human instincts would stifle the development of human personality, D. H. Lawrence attempted to release himself from inhibitions and strove to express the conflict between the flesh and the spirit with daring frankness. In one of his letters he wrote, “The essence of poetry with us in this age of stark and unlovely actualities is a stark directness without the shadow of a lie, or a shadow of deflection anywhere.” But he did not deliberately invent a new language as Joyce did.
James Joyce revolted against religious dogmas and tried to free his mind from conventions. Stephen Dedalus, in Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” wrote, “.....I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely and as wholly as I can...And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a life-long mistake, and perhaps as long as eternity too.” Joyce too, had determined to express himself ‘freely and wholly’ and he invented a peculiar language freed from the narrow rules of grammar.
Dorothy Richardson felt that reality had “a hundred faces, any one of which, the moment it was entrapped within the close mesh of direct statement, summoned its fellows to disqualify it”. With the object of portraying the inner life of her characters vividly, she recorded the stream of impressions passing through the minds of her characters. As May Sinclair has pointed out, “In identifying herself with this life, which is Miriam’s* stream of consciousness, Miss Richardson produces her effect of being the first, of getting closer to reality than any of our novelists who are trying so desperately to get close.” But Miss Richardson was not quite successful in her attempt to give the unity of theme which is essential to a work of art.
Dorothy Richardson’s “Pointed Roofs”, the first volume of ‘Pilgrimage’ was Published in the year 1915. In the same year Mrs. Virginia Woolf’s first novel ‘The Voyage Out’ was published. Mrs. Woolf had a rich literary and cultural background. She was the daughter of the distinguished literary critic and biographer Sir Leslie Stephen. She was also related to the Darwin and Stratchey families. In 1912, she married the publisher and writer Leonard Woolf. The circumstances of life were quite favourable to the development of the powers of this highly sensitive artist. She started with novels in the orthodox from describing external events in the traditional manner. She came under the powerful influence of James Joyce who attempted to show mental life-conscious and subconscious in a succession of images. She read Miss Richardson’s novel ‘The Tunnel’ and perhaps felt that her method of expression would suit her provided the impressions recorded were woven into a fine poetic pattern.
In her first two novels the Voyage Out (1915) and Night and Day (1919) she used the traditional techniques. But she found them inadequate. Just as Mr. T. S. Elliot felt that it was necessary to reject the literary language which had served its purpose in the past but could not be used effectively to express ‘new objects, new groups of objects, new feelings, new aspects.’ Mrs. Woolf felt the necessity of a new way of writing to render her poetic vision in language. She proceeded to make many experiments until she evolved a technique that exactly served her purpose. She found the stream-of-consciousness method best suited to portray the inner life of her characters. In her later novels, we do not find the usual elements of plot, character and dialogue in the ordinary sense of these terms. The realities of human experience are revealed through a stream of impressions and sub-conscious states of mind. Instead of fully realized pictures, a series of brilliant suggestive moments are presented. And all this is done in the imaginative way, not the strictly logical way.
* Miriam Henderson is the heroine throughout the Pilgrimage novels written by Dorothy Richardson