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Stream of Consciousness in Mrs. Dalloway
In the stream of consciousness, the speaker’s thought processes are more often addressed to oneself, it is primarily a fictional device (Bell, 1990). The representation of the stream of consciousness reflected her need to go beyond the clumsiness of the factual realism in the novel. Mrs. Dalloway is an exploration of consciousness as it portrays the shifting political atmosphere through the characters Peter Walsh, Richard Dalloway, and Hugh Whitbread, it focuses more deeply on the charged social mood through the characters Septimus, Warren Smith, and Clarissa Dalloway. Woolfs struggles with mental illness gave her an opportunity to witness firsthand how insensitive medical professionals could be, and she critiques their tactlessness in Mrs. Dalloway. This tells that it is explorations of consciousness rather than events.
The novel Mrs. Dalloway portrays a story that captures a characters thoughts and uses them to tell a story. The novel follows no conventional plot, tragedy, love interest, or catastrophe. For example, Septimus’ death is casually reported at the party although it affects and impacts Mrs. Dalloway in a huge way. The emphasis is laid on the manipulation of words and not on the organization of the story. This helps us to be very close to Mrs. Dalloways mind as she is thinking about the myriad things around her and tells us about the exploration of consciousness.
The consciousness not only shows what a character is thinking, but it can actually replicate the experience of thinking, which allows the reader to enter the mind and world of the character more fully. Similarly, Peters thoughts about Clarissa, how she rejected him for a rich man in the past, and his comment about her being the perfect hostess, outline Mrs. Dalloways present character which is materialistic and cares a lot about her freedom giving hints that the novel has more details on exploration and minimum on events. The characters like Peter and Clarissa portray their possessiveness and sense of freedom when they both think about themselves and about each other.
Through the use of the literary device stream of consciousness, Woolf enters into the minds of the characters, where the reader can experience the characters’ thoughts from within. By practicing this narrative method, Woolf not only creates continuity between different time zones and places but also between the minds of her characters. she draws the relationship between reality, unreality, the exterior world, and an inner world. Furthermore, the study of stream of consciousness in Mrs. Dalloway’s novel is vivid as it deals with the analysis of the characters thoughts, ideas, and feeling in a continuous way from one character to another at a particular moment and focuses more on the inner life rather than on the outer side in which she presents a satirical view of society.
Virginia Woolf has used the stream of consciousness brilliantly in this novel as an exploration of consciousness is used through the characters and gives fewer details on events. The symbols unite everyone. The impressions and expressions are linked up emotionally by the law of association and one even recalls another. The character’s beliefs and reality are shown through their fluidity, almost like a river flowing. Mrs. Dalloways novel portrays a vivid form of writing that uses the technique of Stream of Consciousness to explore the inner life of the characters and expose their follies, frustrations, and complexity.
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