The Stream-of-Consciousness Technique in Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage and Virginia Woolf’s The Mark on the Wall
Even though Richardson has never claimed to have used the ‘stream-of-consciousness’ technique in any of her writings (Rose 368), she is typically referred to as the modernist writer who uses this technique, and some people even argue that she has invented it (Bowling 341). Although it cannot be denied that the reader gets a close look into the narrator’s mind, I have to agree with Richardson that the stream-of-consciousness technique was not used in her novel sequence Pilgrimage. Upon close analysis of chapter 1 from volume 4, it becomes clear that Richardson merely uses interior monologue to share the narrator’s thoughts with the audience. A writer who does make use of the ‘stream-of-consciousness’ technique is Virginia Woolf. The Mark on the Wall gives the reader a glimpse into the narrator’s mind and shows more accurately the narrator’s thoughts than Pilgrimage does. So, while Richardson is seen as the founder of the ‘stream-of-consciousness’ technique, Pilgrimage does not display this technique, but Woolf’s The Mark on the Wall does.
Before elaborating on my argument, I would like to give definitions of ‘interior monologue’ and ‘stream-of-consciousness’, and how these two techniques differ. William Tay states that the term ‘stream-of-consciousness’ ‘has sometimes been used rather loosely and confusingly’, so it is important for this essay to establish a clear-cut definition to build an argument upon. In his article ‘What is the Stream of Consciousness Technique?’, Bowling explores different types of writing techniques which give the reader insight into the narrator’s mind. Bowling defines the interior monologue as a piece of writing which ‘includes all linguistic mental activity’ but does not cover the whole of the consciousness (Bowling 337). In other words, interior monologue describes thoughts that come close to normal human speech and are thoughts that emerge ‘on purpose’: there is clear reasoning behind why a thought surfaces. In contrast, the ‘stream-of-consciousness’ technique ‘may be defined as the narrative by which the author attempts to give a direct quotation of the mind’ (Bowling 345). Moreover, Tay claims that with ‘stream-of-consciousness’, the ‘mind is engaged in an ordinary flow of associations, at the opposite pole from ‘thinking to some purpose” (8). Thus, the ‘stream-of-consciousness’ technique presents thoughts that emerge due to sudden, unanticipated incidents. In summary, the interior monologue merely reveals thoughts that occur on purpose, and the ‘stream-of-consciousness’ technique shows thoughts that do not occur on purpose but are an effect of the surrounding entering someone’s conscious(ness?).
When analysing Richardson’s Pilgrimage, then, it becomes clear that the narrator solely uses the interior monologue technique, besides other ways of narration including the omniscient narrator and regular conversation, but that there is no presence of the ‘stream-of-consciousness’ technique. Chapter 1 from Volume 4 consists of 10 different subchapters. In subchapter one, three and four there is only regular conversation and/or an omniscient narrator. The reader gains insight into Miriam’s mind, but only indirectly. Subchapter two is the first chapter which shows interior monologue, and the interior monologue comes back in subchapters five through ten. Consider the following passage:
‘Coming events cast light. It is like dropping everything and walking backwards to something you know is there. However far you go out you come back. … I am back now where I was before I began trying to do things like other people. I left home to get here. None of those things can touch me here. They are mine … The room asserted its chilliness. But the dark yellow graining of the wallpaper was warm’ (Richardson 3-4).
The passage starts with an omniscient narrator talking, and then it naturally switches to interior monologue (the italicised sentences). The reader follows the thoughts of the narrator which occur on purpose; the narrator thinks of something and such a sentence comes up in her mind. Coming back to Bowling’s definition of interior monologue, it is indeed the case that these thoughts described in the passage are natural, ‘expected’ thoughts; they do not surprise the reader, and the thoughts follow each other naturally. In conclusion, we can, indeed, see into Miriam’s mind because she shares her thoughts, but her thoughts are clearly shared through interior monologue, not ‘stream-of-consciousness’.
Woolf, on the other hand, makes use of the ‘stream-of-consciousness’ technique, as the narrator in The Mark on the Wall is surprised by a sudden occurrence which unexpectedly disturbs and redirects her thoughts which are then shared directly on paper. In The Mark on the Wall, the narrator is looking at a mark on a wall and cannot figure out what it is. While the narrator is thinking about different interpretations of the mark to come up with ideas of what it might be, she loses her train of thought. Her thoughts flow from one thing to another. At the end of the short story is when the clearest example of ‘stream-of-consciousness’ occurs, when the narrator’s thoughts are disrupted:
‘It is full of peaceful thoughts, happy thoughts, this tree. I should like to take one separately-but something is getting in the way … Where was I? What has it all been about? A tree? A river? The Downs? Whitaker’s Almanack? The fields of asphodel? I can’t remember a thing. Everything’s moving, falling, slipping, vanishing… There is a vast upheaval of matter. Someone is standing over me and saying-’ (Woolf 276)
This passage shows regular interior monologue, just as what can be seen in Pilgrimage, but at the end, something remarkable happens. As the narrator is deep in thought, something enters her sight and her thoughts are immediately disturbed, to the point where her mind thinks ‘there is a vast upheaval of matter. Someone is standing over me and saying-’. Actually writing these unexpected thoughts down is what is called the ‘stream-of-consciousness’ technique, where there is no barrier between the narrator’s mind and what the audience gets to read. So, there is a clear use of ‘stream-of-consciousness’ technique in Woolf’s The Mark on the Wall.
To conclude, even though the ‘interior monologue’ technique and the ‘stream-of-consciousness’ technique are very alike, there is a difference between being told what the narrator thinks and thinking along with the narrator as the thought happens. Whereas the former occurs regularly in Richardson’s Pilgrimage, the latter occurs in Woolf’s The Mark on the Wall. Even though Richardson was considered a ‘stream-of-consciousness’ writer, the definition is so specific that it can easily be confused with the ‘interior monologue’ technique, and upon close analysis of the two texts, it has become clear that the ‘stream-of-consciousness’ technique is not actually used in Pilgrimage volume four, chapter one.
Works Cited
Bowling, Lawrence E. ‘What is the Stream of Consciousness technique?’ Modern Language Association, Vol. 65, No. 4, 1950, pp. 333-345.
Richardson, Dorothy. The Tunnel. Pilgrimage. Duckworth and Co, London, 1919.
Rose, Shirley. ‘The Unmoving Center: Consciousness in Dorothy Richardson’s ‘Pilgrimage”. Contemporary Literature, University of Wisconsin Press, Vol. 10, No 3, 1969, pp. 366-382.
Tay, William. ‘Wang Meng, Stream of Consciousness, and the Controversy over Modernism’. Modern Chinese Literature, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1984, pp. 7-24.
Woolf, Virginia. The Mark on the Wall. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. F. 8th ed. Ed. Stephen Jahan Ramazani; Greenblatt; M. H. Abrahms; Jon Stallworthy. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005
Iris Elske 