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The Stream-of-Consciousness Poetics of Joyce, Faulkner and Kerouac

During my senior year of high school many eons ago, I was taking a college-level composition course in which a rather optimistic, bookish and bearded educator attempted (and succeeded in many cases) to open our minds to literature and the different styles and approaches to writing.

At some point during the semester, while we were reading James Joyce, he introduced us to the concept of spontaneous prose, aka stream of consciousness writing. After some rather intensive reading and study over a week or so, he gave us each a piece of paper and a challenge: spend 15 minutes composing spontaneously, jotting down whatever came into our minds, not worrying about grammar or syntax or punctuation, in order to produce our own very short spontaneous prose story.

At the end of those 15 minutes – and in the intervening moments thereafter – the disappointment was so thick it almost left a coating on the inside of your mouth. If he had a crest, I'm sure we would have witnessed it falling. Clearly, none of us was on our way to becoming the next great experimenter in stream of consciousness literature.

Now looking back on those days and weeks we studied my primary thought is: well, what did you expect? For some, the concept of stream of consciousness writing is very simple because there's "no thought" going into what you are writing. You are, after all, just mapping what's going on in the mind of yourself (or a particular character). What could be easier than that? Actually, stream-of-consciousness writing is arguably the most difficult form of writing of all.

Coined by psychologist William James¹, stream of consciousness lives in both the literary and psychological worlds. In psychology, it's that unending flow of ideas, thoughts, and feelings that form the content of an individual's consciousness. In literature, it's the manner of channeling and presenting that flow of ideas, thoughts, and feelings usually in long passages oftentimes without punctuation. By "consciousness" we mean the entire area of the mind's attention – from the rational and communicative to those areas and levels that are less fully formed, the places at the edge of the attention.

Novels that use the stream-of-consciousness² technique typically depict the consciousness of a character, which filters the material of the novel. Robert Humphrey³ called it one of the more "delusive terms" used in literature because even though it sounds concrete enough, it's used in a wide variety of ways to define any number of styles of writing. While the concept of s/o/c may be elusive, the concept of consciousness has been well defined and divided into two levels: speech and prespeech. Speech is rational, organized and controlled; prespeech is completely uncensored, unrestrained by control and not logically ordered. In order to communicate this prespeech level, authors have invented new narrative techniques or manipulated old ones. And that's where many of the writers who successfully utilized s/o/c – Joyce, Faulkner and Kerouac – found their inspiration.

Because of this prespeech level of communication, s/o/c writing gives the impression that one is eavesdropping on the consciousness the character's mind is experiencing, which can be interrupted by phones ringing, dogs barking, and text messages vibrating – in other words, things that otherwise wouldn't be included in a rational, speech-level story remain in a prespeech, s/o/c story because that's the whole point of the s/o/c story. You are gaining a direct, unvarnished, intimate look into the conscious (and subconscious in some cases) mind of the writer and/or character. Here is a quick look at three of the best known s/o/c writers⁴:

JAMES JOYCE
ULYSSES
When it comes to s/o/c writing, James Joyce is the Beatles of the genre⁵. Consider his masterpiece, Ulysses, which follows Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus as they go about their day on June 16, 1904.

The novel parallels Homer's Odyssey and is divided into 18 episodes, starting with Dedalus rising and going off to teach a history class, followed by him wandering the city ruminating on his family and station in life. The book then switches to Bloom, the advertising canvasser, starting his day with his wife Molly, attending a funeral, having lunch at a pub, doing a little work, a lot of talking and finally having dinner with Stephen's uncle at a hotel, all the while having rather lascivious thoughts about various women he encounters⁶. The last portion of the novel has Bloom and Dedalus together, after a night of drunken carousing, heading home, with finial episode consisting of the s/o/c thoughts of Molly, Bloom's wife, upon him returning.

While the story is interesting in structure, it's the s/o/c writing that makes that novel stand out⁷ in 20th century literature. It's a unique capability of presenting the story by bridging the gap between speech and prespeech, sometimes moving freely between the two (sometimes within the same sentence) and resulting in half-words and mixed words, plus puns and phrases with a unique Irish flair. For example, from Ulysses:

"When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water ... Begob, ma'am, says Mrs. Cahill, God send you don't make them in the one pot. Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Feel live warm beings near you. They aren't going to get me this innings. Warm beds: warm full blooded life.
Coffined thoughts around me, in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words. Thoth, god of libraries, a birdgod, moonycrowned. And I heard the voice of that Egyptian highpriest. In painted chambers loaded with tilebooks. They are still. Once quick in the brains of men. Still: but an itch of death is in them, to tell me in my ear a maudlin tale, urge me to wreak their will. As we, or mother Dana, weave and unweave our bodies, Stephen said, from day to day, their molecules shuttled to and fro, so does the artist weave and unweave his image."

S/o/c in this manner can also be called mindfulness, which involves not only observing thoughts and emotions as they arise, but noting them as well. There's no evaluation or analysis, no judgment or valuation, just observation and note taking.

See also: Finnegans Wake

WILLIAM FAULKNER
THE SOUND AND THE FURY
Whereas Ulysses often tops the list of greatest 20th century English-language novels, The Sounds and the Fury is often listed right alongside. While they both utilize a s/o/c style, Faulkner wields it in a much different manner. The story itself is of a post-Civil War Southern family (the Compsons) as told through the eyes of the individual family members – brothers Benjy, Quentin and Jason – and their servants. The main focus in the story is Caddy Compson, the only daughter in the family who becomes pregnant out of wedlock, gets married and then sends her daughter back to live with her family. She's also the only character not to "speak" in the novel. Her story is told through the other family members. It shows a family falling into greater economic troubles, culminating with Mr. Compson selling the last of the family land to finance Caddy's wedding.

Faulkner's s/o/c writing is evident throughout the book and varies based on the character who is "speaking." The first chapter provides the most stunning (and sometimes difficult to comprehend) example as Benjy Compson, the autistic older son, takes the stage, talking about his passion for fire, the golf course that now resides on the old family land⁸, and his sister Caddy. The language is literary impressionism at its finest, as it shifts between time and setting with little warning.

In Quentin's chapter, Faulkner's s/o/c writing becomes decidedly more intelligent, creative and self-destructive as Quentin⁹ struggles to live with his sister's promiscuity, culminating in¹⁰ his suicide. This section, because of the psychological torment Quentin is putting himself through, can be even more difficult to read as Faulkner for the most part disregards grammar and punctuation. What makes the section even more confusing¹¹ is that Quentin, because of his state of mind, is a completely unreliable narrator¹². His words and phrases stumble together and it's difficult to tell where one thought begins and another one ends.

Two additional sections, coming from the perspective of the Jason, the rational son, and Dilsey, the loyal matriarchal servant to the Compson family, offer a more direct and straight forward narrative, filling in the gaps created by Benjy and Quentin.

JACK KEROUAC
VISIONS OF CODY
Unlike Joyce and Faulkner, Kerouac's experiments with s/o/c¹³ grew out of his Franco-American heritage, where he learned English as a second language. At a very young age, Kerouac immersed himself in classic English literature in order to improve his mastery of the English language. The impressionistic form of his language finds its genesis here: a kid who speaks French translating those words (and structures) into English. While On The Road is legendary for being a spontaneously written novel¹⁴, in Visions of Cody Kerouac explores the life of Neal Cassady¹⁵ and zips through the On The Road years¹⁶, beginning with a series of spontaneous prose essays, which Kerouac called "sketches," about New York City and his family after World War II, during which he takes a trip west to see Neal. The next section of the book is primarily transcriptions of taped conversations¹⁷ between himself, Neal and Carolyn, Neal's wife, followed by more sketches Kerouac wrote after listening to the tapes himself. The concluding section has Kerouac recounting his many travels with Neal Cassady and the effect they had on both men's families and relationships.

ENDNOTES
(1) Brother of Henry James, author over two dozen novels and over 100 short stories and novellas, most notably "The Turn of a Screw", "Washington Square", "The Europeans", and "The Bostonians".

(2) For expediency's sake and since I have to stay within a word count, from here on out s/o/c will be substituted for stream-of-consciousness

(3) In what is commonly regarded as the foremost critical study on s/o/c in the modern novel entitled, ironically enough, "S/o/C in the Modern Novel".

(4) There are some notable omissions due, again, to space/word considerations, primarily Virginia Woolf. My deepest and most sincere apologies to the entire Woolf family; I hope they won't hold it against me.

(5) Specifically the Beatles in their post-White Album years when many of their compositions had a stream-of-consciousness quality.

(6) One scene in particular, where Bloom apparently masturbates while a young woman exposes her legs and undergarments to him in a park, resulted in obscenity allegations in the U.S. in 1920. At a trial in 1921, the novel was effectively barred from the U.S. Finally, in 1934, the novel was ruled not pornographic and, therefore, not obscene.

(7) Ulysses often tops reviewer and critic's lists of the top English-language novels of the 20th century.

(8) Which creates confusion at times over the use of the word "Caddy."

(9) Who is now a student at Harvard.

(10) SPOILER ALERT!

(11) Or more interesting, if you are a Faulkner nerd like myself.

(12) Even more so than Benjy!

(13) Or spontaneous prose, as Kerouac preferred to call it.

(14) It wasn't. Kerouac struggled with novel for years, writing and rewriting many sections in his notebooks. The final scroll version of the novel was written in marathon of 20 days – and to call it a marathon is more correct because no one completes a marathon without training, and Kerouac trained, writing over a million words before setting down to write On The Road.

(15) Who was also the muse for novels by Ken Kesey and Tom Wolfe, and poetry by Allen Ginsberg.

(16) At times, Visions of Cody reads more like a refined version of On The Road, as if Kerouac decided to give the material another pass with a very sharp editor's eye.

(17) Something relatively revolutionary in fiction at the time (1951).

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