Abstract

Consciousness refers to the continuous flow of thoughts, memories and awareness in the human mind. It covers a larger area of unrestricted mental activities. There are layers within layers in the human consciousness. This paper tends to show that there is no other controller of an individual but his or her own consciousness. The paper has been undertaken in hopes that the study would lead to a new knowledge and provide foundations or approaches to James Joyce, which would make his novels more understandable. It also examines how consciousness affects the characters’ participation in various activities. They are affected positively or negatively by their consciousness. Each of the layers of the human mind plays an important role in influencing and shaping human behavoiur. If a character does some work without thinking, he is unconsciously conscious. Events in memory are co-existed. They move backward and forward freely. Joyce’s novels are mimicry of mental activities going on in the minds of the characters: Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and Molly Bloom. The darker side of the mind is given more emphasis than the light side of our beings. He renders the ‘psyche’ or ‘soul’ of character accurately or truthfully. The interest shifts from the extrovert to introvert, from outer to inner. He tries to portray impressions flowing in conscious, subconscious and unconscious mind.

Highlights

  • The behaviour of man is conducted by the forces lying deep within sub-conscious and unconscious

  • Adler and Carl Jung in the field of psychology stimulate the modern novelists in the early years of twentieth century

  • The novels that are said to use the stream of consciousness technique to a considerable degree prove, upon analysis, to be novels which have as their essential subject matter the consciousness of one or more characters; that is, the depicted consciousness serves as a screen on which the material in these novels is presented. (Humphrey 2)

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Summary

Introduction

The behaviour of man is conducted by the forces lying deep within sub-conscious and unconscious. Joyce’s novels are mimicry of mental activities going on in the minds of the characters: Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and Molly Bloom. In talking of it thereafter let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life.

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