What is the Stream of Consciousness Technique?

Abstract

Despite the fact that the stream of consciousness technique occupies an important position in twentieth-century fiction, there is no general agreement as to where the method originated or what it really is. As Frederick J. Hoffman observes, “Writers and critics are both confused by the idea of ‘interior monologue,’ or the ‘stream of consciousness,’ as it is more familiarly known.”1 Elizabeth Drew says that the stream of consciousness technique was “invented by Dorothy Richardson.”2 Katharine F. Gerould remarks that Henry James “introduced the method into English fiction.”3 In an editorial note appended to the English edition of Edouard Dujardin's Les Lauriers sont coupés, James Laughlin holds that Dujardin invented interior monologue.4 In making this statement, he is following the position taken by Dujardin in Le Monologue intérieur, in which he attempts to describe and define the method first used by him, he says, in Les Lauriers.