Stream of consciousness writing
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MaximillianRiese
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Burn Notice. If someone could find a way to reference a video where the lock breaking method from Loose Ends working, please reference it! I'm bad at Wiki-editing.
{{Citations missing|date=May 2007}}
{{Original research|date=September 2007}}
: ''For other uses, see [[Stream of consciousness (psychology)]]''
In [[literary criticism]], '''stream of consciousness''' is a [[literary technique]] that seeks to portray an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, either in a loose [[interior monologue]], or in connection to his or her sensory reactions to external occurrences. Stream-of-consciousness writing is strongly associated with the [[Modernist literature|modernist movement]]. The introduction of the term to describe literature, transferred from psychology, is attributed to [[May Sinclair]], and is mostly a [[dead metaphor]].
==Literature==
Stream-of-consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of [[interior monologue]] and is characterized by associative (and at times--dissociative) leaps in syntax and punctuation that can make the prose difficult to follow, tracing a character's fragmentary thoughts and sensory feelings. Stream of consciousness and interior monologue are distinguished from [[dramatic monologue]], where the speaker is addressing an audience or a third person, and is used chiefly in [[poetry]] or [[drama]]. In stream of consciousness, the speaker's thought processes are more often depicted as overheard in the mind (or addressed to oneself) and is primarily a [[fiction]]al device. The term was first introduced to the field of literary studies from that of psychology by philosopher and psychologist [[William James]], brother of the influential writer [[Henry James]].
Several notable works employing stream of consciousness are:
* [[Édouard Dujardin]]'s ''[[Les Lauriers sont coupés]]'' (1888)
* [[Knut Hamsun]]'s ''[[Sult|Hunger]]'' (1890)
* [[Arthur Schnitzler]]'s ''[[Leutnant Gustl]]'' (1901)
* [[Marcel Proust]]'s ''[[In Search of Lost Time]]'' (1913-27)
* [[T. S. Eliot]]'s ''[[The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock]]'' (1915)
* [[Dorothy Richardson]]'s ''Pilgrimage'' (1915-28)
* [[James Joyce]]'s
**''[[A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man]]'' (1916)
**''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'' (1922) - in particular [[Molly Bloom's Soliloquy]]
**''[[Finnegans Wake (novel)|Finnegans Wake]]'' (1939)
* [[Virginia Woolf]]'s
**''[[Mrs. Dalloway]]'' (1925)
**''[[To the Lighthouse]]'' (1927)
**''[[The Waves]]'' (1931)
* [[Hermann Hesse]]'s ''[[Steppenwolf_%28novel%29|Steppenwolf]]'' (1927)
* [[William Faulkner]]'s
**''[[The Sound and the Fury]]'' (1929)
**''[[As I Lay Dying]]'' (1930)
* [[Lewis Grassic Gibbon]]'s ''[[Sunset Song]]'' (1932)
* [[William Styron]]'s ''[[Lie Down in Darkness]]'' (1951)
* [[Samuel Beckett]]'s 'trilogy' :
**''[[Molloy (novel) |Molloy]]'' (1951)
**''[[Malone Dies]]'' (1951)
**''[[The Unnamable]]''(1953)
* [[Sam Selvon]]'s ''[[The Lonely Londonders]]'' (1956)
* [[Thomas Pynchon]]'s ''[[Gravity's Rainbow]]'' (1973)
* Everything is Illuminated - Johnathan Safran Foer (2002)
* [[William Burroughs]]'s ''[[Naked Lunch]]'' (1959)
* [[Jerzy Andrzejewski]]'s ''[[Gates to Paradise]]'' (1960)
* [[J. D. Salinger]]'s ''[[Seymour: An Introduction]] (1963)
* [[Julio Cortázar]]'s ''[[Rayuela]] (Hopscotch)'' (1963)
* [[Hubert Selby Jr.]]'s
**''[[Last Exit to Brooklyn]]'' (1964) {{Fact|date=May 2007}}
**''[[Requiem for a Dream]]'' (1978) {{Fact|date=May 2007}}
* [[Oğuz Atay]]'s ''[[Tutunamayanlar]]'' (''The Disconnected'') (1972)
* [[Robert Anton Wilson]] & [[Robert Shea]]'s ''[[Illuminatus!]]'' (1975)
* [[Samuel R. Delany]]'s ''[[Dhalgren]]'' (1975)
* [[Nadine Gordimer]]'s ''[[July's People]]'' (1981)
*[[Bahram Bayzai]]'s ''Death of Yazdgerd'' (1982)
* [[Patrick McCabe]]'s [[The Butcher Boy]] (1992)
* [[Will Christopher Baer]]'s ''[[Phineas Poe]]'' trilogy (2005))
**''[[Kiss Me, Judas]]''
**''[[Hell's Half Acre]]''
**''[[Penny Dreadful]]'' (parts)
* [[Clarice Lispector]]'s whole work.
* [[Mark Z. Danielewski]]'s "[[House of Leaves]]" (2000)
The technique has been parodied, for example, by [[David Lodge (author)|David Lodge]] in the final chapter of ''[[The British Museum Is Falling Down]]''.
==Other media==
The technique is not specifically confined to literary sources, and has been used loosely to describe either separately or in combination with other media. For instance, Travis Trent sings unwritten stream of consciousness lyrics on five of the six songs on the album Stories: His, Mine, Others.
===Stand-up comedy===
*British comedian [[Ross Noble]]'s performances take the form of a stream of consciousness with partial interaction with the audience, with the effect of him going off on tangents during the whole show.
===Cinema and sketch comedy===
*[[Terrence Malick]] is notable for using a stream of consciousness voice over for one or several of his characters in all of his four films to date. His characters usually express thoughts of [[existentialism]] and are deeply rooted in philosophical matters.
*The movie [[The Weather Man]] with [[Nicolas Cage]] presents a scene where the main character narrates his line of thought when going off to buy [[tartar sauce]]. The use of stream of consciousness in this scene has the purpose of explaining why the character forgot to buy the tartar sauce.
*The movie [[Adaptation.]], written by [[Charlie Kaufman]], starts with an internal [[monologue]] from the main character, who is also called Charlie Kaufman. The monologue shows he suffers from a [[writer's block]], and is by association filled with random thoughts of failure. [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adaptation.]
===Television===
*[[Terry Gilliam]] made cut-out animations as a [[Monty Python | Python]] for the show [[Monty Python's Flying Circus]], which linked together sketches using stream of consciousness.
*The [[National Broadcasting Corporation|NBC]] [[sitcom]] [[Scrubs (TV series)|''Scrubs'']] is presented with [[John Dorian|the protagonist]]'s thoughts heard by the viewer as a stream-of-consciousness [[voiceover]] playing the role of [[narration]]; it often goes off on seemingly random tangents—much as any person's thoughts tend to wander if not focused on something specific. The viewer also frequently sees the protagonist's imagination at work.
*The [[American Broadcasting Corporation|ABC]] [[sitcom]], [[Wonder Years]] is also presented with [[Kevin Arnold|the protagonist]]'s thoughts heard by the viewer as a stream-of-consciousness [[voiceover]] playing the role of [[narration]].
*[[Stand-up comedians]] [[Dennis Miller]] and [[Richard Lewis]] perform fast-paced [[monologues]] containing [[pop culture]] references which are often described as stream-of-consciousness.
*The [[USA Network]] television show ''[[Burn Notice]]'' uses stream-of-consciousness narrations to give tips about being a spy or using everyday items for complicated gadgets. Most are actually successful.
===World Wide Web===
One example of a website that uses the technique is [http://c3f.com/mfu1.html Cognitec/3rd Force], which is the progressive work of an anonymous author known only as "[[User:Golden Eternity/HC Author|HC]]." The site began in the mid 1990s as a series of bizarre and sardonic original passages which was "spoofed" to look like prominent web portals of the early [[Dot com boom]]. For example, the now defunct "Pathfinder" site (now simply the Time Inc. portal [http://www.pathfinder.com/pathfinder/index.html]) was parodied as "Crapfinder," the "New York Times" became the "New Times York."
Because of the site's extensive use of the literary method, transitory and seemingly-unrelated themes became connected through [[hyperlink]]s. These seemed to further reflect the free-flowing thought process of the strangely prolific author. It was later revealed that much of the content consisted of excerpts from the [[metafictional]] novel ''MFU'' (ISBN 188640402X) [http://www.librarything.com/work/1387833]. The novel's desultory narrative structure and breadth of material was sufficient for creating years worth of related material in the form of multiple parodies, faux news reports, and essays, as well as providing prospective readers of the novel an opportunity to "sample" the book. Most of the novel was subsequently released as either readable or searchable on-line [http://c3f.com/mfu1.html].
Many online forums have sections for so-called "Off-Topic" discussions. Threads in these forums tend to loosely follow stream-of-consciousness simply by virtue of the fact that multiple people express their own thought processes without hesitation of retribution. This perspective is, of course, controversial since traditional stream-of-consciousness is the result of one person's writing alone.
A relatively new website, http://chainofthoughts.com conforms to the stream of consciousness style of writing using [[tag cloud]]s to shift readers through various seemingly unrelated pages. Following the [[Virginia Tech massacre]] the [[website]] was used as a place of semi-anonymous mourning and was highlighted on the [[BBC]] website.<ref>{{cite web | title=BBC: ''Coping with death on the web'' | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6700743.stm | last=Jackson | first=Patrick | accessdate=2007-05-30}}</ref>
===Music===
* At least two of the songs on [[Van Morrison]]'s acclaimed album "''[[Astral Weeks]]''" were said to be stream of consciousness by the composer. "'[[Madame George]]' just came right out. The song is just a stream of consciousness thing, as is '[[Cyprus Avenue]]'. Both these songs just came right out. I didn't even think about what I was writing."<ref>Yorke, Into the Music, p. 61.</ref>
* [[R.E.M. (band)|R.E.M.]]'s song "[[It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)]]" features rapid-fire lyrics that are described as stream of consciousness.
* [[Bob Dylan]]'s songs "[[Like a Rolling Stone]]", "[[Desolation Row]]" & "[[Subterranean Homesick Blues]]", the latter of which was said by R.E.M. to have influenced their song above.
* Singer [[Cedric Bixler-Zavala]] from [[the Mars Volta]] and [[At the Drive-In]] often writes in a highly abstract style, which could be considered stream of consciousness.
* [[Bruce Springsteen]]'s first two albums, "''[[Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.]]''" and "''[[The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle]]''" feature the stream of consciousness technique in a majority of the lyrics, such as Springsteen's first single, '[[Blinded by the Light]]'.
*[[Dream Theater]] has an instrumental song titled "Stream of Consciousness" in which the song flows openly based on a single chord progression. The song is believed to be written as an example of stream of consciousness.
*[[Spock's Beard]] a progressive rock band, has a song titled "Stream of Unconsciousness" The name is most likely a parody of the Dream Theater song.
* Many songs on the album [[The Holy Bible (album)|The Holy Bible]] by [[Manic Street Preachers]] are written in this style.
* The first part of [[Sonic Youth]]'s "Teenage Riot" is recited by Kim Gordon in this method.
* [[John Frusciante]] used Stream of Consciousness on his debut solo album '[[Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt]]'
*[[Thom Yorke]] of [[Radiohead]] frequently writes songs in this style, for instance "A Wolf at the Door" from their 2003 album [[Hail to the Thief]].
*Karl Hyde of the UK electronic band [[Underworld (band)|Underworld]] is know to frequently use the method.<ref>[http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/p563/ BBC - Dance Review - Underworld, Oblivion With Bells<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref><ref>[http://www.popmatters.com/music/interviews/underworld-040114.shtml PopMatters Music Interview | Karl Hyde's Dirty Epic<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> It is especially apparent in the songs "[[Pearl's Girl]]", "[[Born Slippy .NUXX]]", and "[[Cowgirl (song)|Cowgirl]]".
* [[Billy Joel]]'s "[[We Didn't Start the Fire]]"
Rap has many examples, such as:
* [[Hip hop music|Hip Hop]] group [[Das EFX]] is especially known for employing this technique in their lyrics, constantly shifting from one subject to another while rapping.
* Rapper Eminem has also used the technique in his song Rain Man, parodying the character in the film ''[[Rain Man]]'' on his album, Encore.
* [[Hip hop music|Hip hop]] artist [[Ghostface Killah]] is well known for his stream of consciousness rapping, a style largely his own that utilizes complicated and constantly shifting subject matter to illustrate his mindset and viewpoint.
* [[Kool Keith]] is known for his complicated and Stream Of Consciousness rap flow.
==Notes==
{{reflist}}
==References==
*Yorke, Ritchie (1975). Into The Music, London:Charisma Books , ISBN 0-85947-013-X
==See also==
* [[Stream of consciousness (psychology)]]
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