Comparison and Contrast Paragraph. Iryna Nikolaichuk

Narrative Techniques of Psychologization: Interior Monologue vs. Stream of Consciousness 

Outline

Point-by-point style

- General function in the text

interior monologue/stream of consciousness

- Lexical and syntactical features

interior monologue/stream of consciousness

- The main message

interior monologue/stream of consciousness

In literary and comparative studies throughout all history of their changing and developing much attention is paid to different narrative techniques, especially to features of explication of psychology in literary writing. Sometimes literary criticism faces facts of inappropriate usage of some terms and concepts up to mixing up their meanings. For example, there is still a tendency of estimating terms ‘interior monologue’ and ‘stream of consciousness’ as two different names for the one narrative technique, and this misunderstanding makes a serious problem for researchers. Interior monologue and stream of consciousness as actually two different concepts, however, have a number of similarities and differences in their functions in the text as narrative techniques, lexical and syntactical features of their implication in literary writing, and the message they provide. It is true that interior monologue and stream of consciousness are similar when speaking about how they are functioning in the text – both interior monologue and stream of consciousness are narrative techniques whose main aim in literary writing is to describe a personality of a fictional character. But interior monologue is a kind of third-person narration, whereas stream of consciousness almost always presents first-person type of narration. Like interior monologue, stream of consciousness provides special lexical and syntactical features when is implicated in the text. On the other hand, interior monologue implicates with usual syntax forms and almost excludes lexical innovations, but stream of consciousness always uses unstructured and disordered forms of syntax (or ignores syntax rules at all) and very often has unusual (sometimes even invented by author) words or lexical forms. Speaking about the main messages that are provided by these two narrative techniques, although both interior monologue and stream of consciousness aim to demonstrate thoughts and emotions of fictional characters, they completely differ in meaning. Interior monologue is a form of communication between fictional characters; however, stream of consciousness is non-communicative at all – it only represents chaotic, illogical flow of one’s mind. To sum up, interior monologue and stream of consciousness are both narrative techniques which are using in literary writing to make it more psychologically expressive, but there is no possibility to consider these two terms as the same concept.

Source: bachelor paper "Narrative technique of 'stream of concsiousness' in British literature of modernism: James Joyce, Virginia Woolf" by Iryna Nikolaichuk; tutor - Rostyslav Semkiv. - Kyiv, 2012. - 100 p.