Literary Style: Stream of Consciousness:The Narrative Voice of the Mind

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Stream- Of-Consciousness, a phrase used by Alexander Bain in 1855 had its earliest beginnings in Psychology, typically dealing with aspects of the mind. It was considered a mixture of all levels of awareness: unending flow of sensation, thought, memory, associations, and reflections on various subjects.

The term itself would later be coined by American Psychologist William James in his book The Principles of Psychology, written in 1890. The term was used by several writers in forms of writing experimentation, primarily in literature’s modern age. Some writers who used it include: Dorothy Richardson, James Joyce, Thomas Wolfe, and William Faulkner.

One precursor to stream-of-consciousness writing in literature was interior monologue. Laurence Sterne and Marcel Proust used the interior monologue before it really became a standard in writing; but they were on the same track that William James defined in his Principle of Psychology.

Sterne’s book Tristram Shandy written 1759–1767 contained his view of writing which was: “it is not actions, but opinions about actions which disturb men.” (Handbook 458). It was “a means at least of bringing evil to the surface, of demonstrating how much we are bound in our mental processes by memories, reactions, and obsessions.” (British…