This was a tough assignment. It contains Stream of Consciousness in Virginia Woolf's novel To The Lighthouse and D.H. Lawrence's novel Sons and Loves. Its just a short and general analysis. Hope will be of help.

1. Department of English Under-Graduate Studies
BS Hons. 6th
Semester
Course Title: Novel-B
Nature of Document: Assignment
Title of Assignment: Stream of Consciousness in Two Novels
Section: BS-English 6-B
Shift: Afternoon
Submitted By: Zia Ur Rehman
Submitted to: Sir Faiz
Date: 24 Dec 2019

2. STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
tream of consciousness, which can be called as interior monologue, is a method of
narration that ecacts how people think. The term was coined by psychologist William
James in his research, The Principals of Psychology. In literature this style of writing
was developed by a group of writers in the beginning of twentieth century. Through this
technique the readers are watching the story through the eyes of the character and feeling every
thought and emotion that the character is going through. For example in the story The Tell-Tale
Heart by Edgar Allen Poe the reader is inside the mind of the narrator. He is watching every
character and object through eyes of the killer and feeling every thought and thrill that the killer felt
while murdering the old man.
IN “To The Lighthouse”:
In this novel, the writer Virginia Woolf gave the readers a perfect model for stream of
consciousness. Although the writer Virginia narrates most of the story herself but she takes us
through the mind of each and every character as we face the flow of thoughts and emotions of that
character. She seldom comments during this tour and keep the readers focused on thoughts of
character. One has to stay completely focused on the reading because if you pause at one point
before ending the sentence, you will forget where you are just as when you are interrupted during
speaking sometime you loose the point you were talking about.
The novel is very complex and is hard to grasp. The flow of thoughts is so random and in
abundance that it paints the reality of psychological processes which take place in mind of a person.
If we begin with the novel, in the beginning there is talk of going to the lighthouse and James was
very excited about it but Mr. Ramsay refused for some reason. The thought that originated in the
mind of James at that time does not sound like anything that could originate in the mind of a six year
old. He thought about gashing an axe or poker in the chest of his father. Woolf tells us how Mr.
Ramsay’s presence was unbearable for James, but what his father said was true as it was always true.
There are to things here. The first is such thoughts can not originate in a six year old boy which
S

3. could mean that maybe James is an elder person and remembering the event in his mind that when he
was six years old he faced such thoughts about his father. In that way the thoughts could be justified
from principals of relativity because it is possible for a elder person to think such thing or exaggerate
such emotions. The other thing is we see two flow of thoughts one is anger on father and the other is
agreeableness toward the father. Though he is furious but he knows that his father is right. Such
stream of thoughts are depicted by Woolf in the novel.
Another thing which can be observed in the novel is jump from character. Virginia Woolf is in
complete control she jumps from mind of one character to mind of another. In this way we are able
to see characters not from just their own thoughts but also from minds and perceptions of other
characters. For example for Lily Briscoe Mrs. Ramsay is a gorgeous and beautiful lady who is model
for her painting and who she praises, but we also see that Mr. Tansley who once visited someone
with Mrs. Ramsay had initially no attraction toward Mrs. Ramsay but when she came downstairs at
that place she was the most beautiful person that Mr. Tansley had ever seen. He became her admirer
and his greatest honor and achievement at that time was lifting the bag of Mrs. Ramsay. Similarly,
Children hate Mr. Tansley for some reason which Mrs. Ramsay thinks is that whenever a
conversation is going on and Mr. Tansley is one of the participants, he always looks for a way and
finds one to make the conversation about him at the end. Not this may or may not be the children’s
opinion but Mrs. Ramsay thinks that it is the opinion of the children. Similarly we get to see Mr.
Ramsay through eyes of James who hates him the most in the beginning, from eyes of Mrs. Ramsay
who thinks that she has somewhat failed in the marriage and that her husband loves her but he is
unable to express it. We see each character from his thoughts and also how others judge him.
The stream of consciousness in this novel is not like most novels. Though it is true there is
flow of thoughts and we get to watch story and characters through eyes of reader but the style of
Virginia Woolf is different. What is observed is that just like unless you explain your complete
thought to someone it is uncomprehendable to them, similarly unless you read a complete paragraph
or sometimes section of this novel you cannot understand what is going on. Almost each thought is
integrated with another thought which is then integrated with another thought which keeps going on.
So, each complete thought is divided into bits and pieces and those pieces are surrounded by bits and
pieces of other thoughts and to understand each thought completely one has to read complete part so
that he can connect all the dots and understand the thought.

4. Last thing is in stream of consciousness time is not constant. One cannot tell how much time
has passed while one was thinking because scores of thoughts originate in the mind in matter of a
second. Such was the reason that only little time passed in the first section of the novel while so
much time passed in the second section. It is hard to keep track of time when thoughts make it so
difficult. For Example many chapters of first section, many thoughts and past events that were
depicted there happened just between when Mr. Ramsay refused to go to the Lighthouse the next day
and after some time Mrs. Ramsay came to him to talk about it. Such is the complexity of thoughts
and uniqueness of Stream of consciousness of Virginia Woolf in To The Lighthouse.
In “Sons and Lovers”:
D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers is a psychological novel. It is a long narrative novel in which the
writer has depicted the conflicts and problems of a struggling family. There are several ups and
downs throughout the course of the novel. The stream of consciousness which can be observed in the
novel is with the character of Paul Morrel.
After the death of William Morrel, the second son takes over the story and also the role of
protagonist of the novel. Some say that the protagonist was Gertrude Morrel in first half of Novel but
it is in any case taken over by Paul in the second half of the novel. The novel depicts the emotional
development of Paul Morrel, how he was not given attention by either of his parents at younger age
as mother gave all attention to William and Mr. Morrel was only attached to Andrew but poor Paul
was left hungry for love. He only got attention of his mother when he got struck by pneumonia after
William died with pneumonia. He was later depicted as a person who was trapped in an unescapable
modern world. His conflict of mind after his mother’s death is an example of stream of
consciousness. It can be interior monologue or soliloquy of mind, because there was an integration of
speech and thought. A dialogue going on inside himself in his mind. He was in conflict with himself
and hence was making a speech with himself. The following lines depict how the dialogue was going
on:

5. "What am I doing?"
And out of the semi-intoxicated trance came the answer.
"destroying myself". Then a dull live feeling, gone in an instant, told him that it was wrong. After
a while suddenly
Came the question:
"why wrong?"
Again there was no answer, but a stroke of hot stubbornness inside his chest resisted his own
annihilation.
There was a sound of heavy cart clanking down the road. Suddenly the electric light went out;
there was a bruising
Thud in the penny-in-the slot meter. He did not stir, but sat gazing in front of him. Only the mice
had scuttled, and
The fire glowed red in the dark room.
Then, quite mechanically and more distinctly, the conversation began again inside him.
"she's dead. What was it all for--her struggle?"
That was his despair wanting to go after her.
"you're alive, she's not"
Suddenly he felt tired with the burden of it.
"you've got to keep alive for her sake," said his will in him. Something felt sulky as if it would
not rouse "you've got to carry forward her living, and what she had done, go on with it." but he
did not want to. He wanted to give up.
In this above quoted portion of the novel, there are three voices. Two are inside speaker’s
mind and the third is of the narrator which in connecting the dialogues of the speaker. The conflict is
going on inside the readers mind. A serious psychological conflict can be observed going on in mind
of Paul Morrel.
This was the only example of Stream of consciousness which I was able to find in the novel.