MB UNIUD

Comparison between the stream of consciousness and the interior monologue.

The texts I use to make the comparison are:

1. The last part of episode number 18 from the Ulysses by Joyce (for the stream of consciousness)
2. The Dead, by Joyce (for the monologue)

Stream of consciousness

• a) The significance is conveyed by the semantic choice of the words. As a matter of fact, the same words or the same sounds create unity in the text, as this is the only way the reader is able to understand what the stream of consciousness of the character is about. We find, for example, the word YES, in all the extract.
• b) Although in the stream of consciousness there is no syntax the reader is able to follow all the discourse. The connections in the extract are made by images, sounds etc, etc...so there is no need to have syntax. The only problem is that if you lose the point of what you are reading you have from the beginning.
• c) Elements that unify and that give sense to the speech: the word yes, Penelope's feelings, the semantic field of the sun of something that burns (the sun, fire...), and nature.
• d) The stream of consciousness is a narrative technique that records the multifarious thoughts and feelings of a character without regard to logical argument or narrative sequence: at first the reader is confused, analyzing better the text some items (like semantic fields) will be more clear. He has to make conjectures.
• e) When the reader is in front of a text in which there is the stream of consciousness he is in the character's mind with no interference of the writer.

Interior monologue

• a) In the monologue the significance is conveyed with the presence of sequences that give unity to the text. In The Dead is made up of sequences: when Gabriel and his wife arrive at the party, the ball, dinner...
• b) The interior monologue is the representation of a character's thoughts. His thoughts are filtered from the writer, which adds connectors. At the contrary of the stream of consciousness, if you lose the point of what you were reading you don't need to restart reading from the beginning of the text.
• c) The elements that unify and that give sense to the speech are the connectors.
• d) Reading and interior monologue you don't need to make conjectures, as a matter of fact everything is written, there is an omniscient narrator that writes many details in order to create realism. For example at the end of the novel, what Gabriel sees is described in very minute details.
• e) With the interior monologue we have the shift of the point of view. The reader reads the character's thoughts with the interference of the writer that makes the reading of someone's thoughts more easy then the stream of consciousness.