US-China Foreign Language, August 2018, Vol. 16, No. 8, 413-416 doi:10.17265/1539-8080/2018.08.003
Multimodality of Interior Monologues in Faulkner’s Stream-of-Consciousness Novels
LIU Shuyun
University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
Interior monologues are common devices across the range of dramatic media (plays, films, etc.), and also effective
approaches in novels, especially ud interchangeably with stream-of-consciousness in modernist psychological
novels. William Faulkner employs veral modes of them, encompassing direct interior monologue, soliloquy, and
omniscient description in his stream-of-consciousness masterpieces The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying to
mirror consciousness at different levels. This paper attempts to differentiate the modes and analyze their
锦纶英文respective effects in reprenting the subtle movements of the psyche process, thus giving a glimp of
Faulkner’s highly skilled craft of capturing and prerving the complicacy and fluidity of consciousness.
Keywords: stream-of-consciousness novels, direct interior monologue, soliloquy, omniscient description
Every novelist who tries to prent characters in depth faces the problem of conveying, in a convincing way, events in his characters’ inner lives which, if they occurred in a real-life situation, would remain forever beyond the knowledge of an
outside obrver. (Bickerton, 1967, p. 229)
Especially for the 20th century psychological novelists, it has been a constant challenge to faithfully reprent the dynamic psychic life freely flowing in a chronological continuum. Numerous novelists h
ave tried
various means in this respect, among whom, the American writer William Faulkner was widely accepted as one
of the most outstanding figures.
Modes of Interior Monologues
Robert Humphrey lists four basic techniques ud in rendering inner psyche: direct interior monologue, indirect interior monologue, soliloquy, and omniscient description (Humphrey, 1954, p. 28).
Generally speaking, direct interior monologue is the direct first-person narration devoid of the author’s interference, that is, without any explanations or remarks from the author on the character’s thoughts and
experiences. The character is allowed to display his/her inner conflicts, the impressions, emotions, thoughts,
associations, etc., that impinge upon his/her mind, therefore more often than not revealing his/her
unconsciousness. While with regard to indirect interior monologue, the third-person narration is adopted with
the author partly involved to make explanations or comments. So, the subconscious or conscious mind is shown
since there is the author’s cret control on the movements of the character’s inner life. Soliloquy, however, is a
speech uttered by the character to reveal “his or her inner thoughts and feelings to the audience, either in
suppod lf-communion or in a consciously direct address.” (Baldick, 2000, p. 207).That is to say, a
LIU Shuyun, Master’s degree in literature, lecturer, Foreign Languages College, University of Shanghai for Science and
Technology, Shanghai, China.
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MULTIMODALITY OF INTERIOR MONOLOGUES
414 character says to himlf or herlf, relating a more organized quence of rational thoughts and feelings in a logical and connected manner. At last, the omniscient description is given by the omniscient powerful author “from an outside, godlike point of view” (Bickerton, 1967, p. 229). Compared with the former ones, it ems to be a more traditional method.
Direct Interior Monologue ―Idiot Consciousness & Dream Consciousness
complicated是什么意思
If Joyce has a preference for direct interior monologue, and Woolf for indirect interior monologue, then
William Faulkner shows a leaning towards a blending one. In The Sound and the Fury (1929) and As I Lay Dying (1930), his stream-of-consciousness masterpieces, Faulkner employed a combination of them to depict consciousness on various levels.
In the first two ctions of the novel The Sound and the Fury , direct interior monologues are ud to render
“the most intimate thought that lies nearest the unconscious” (Humphrey, 1954, p. 24). They reprent the meandering of the consciousness of the idiot Benjy and “dream consciousness,” or more precily, day-dream consciousness, of Benjy’s brother Quentin before his suicide. Here, consciousness is prented to the reader “with negligible author interference and with no auditor assumed” (Humphrey, 1954, p. 25). The author with his guiding “he saids” and “he thoughts” disappears completely or almost completely from the page, the reader is given a private world, with no visible guide to direct him. Following is such an example ud by Faulkner to prent Quentin’s consciousness in his last minutes:
A quarter-hour yet. And then I’ll not be. The peacefullest words. Peacefullest words. Non fui. Sum. Fui. Non sum
Somewhere I heard bells once. Mississippi or Massachutts. I was. I am not. Massachutts or Mississippi. Shreve has a
bottle in his trunk. Aren’t you even going to open it Mr. and Mrs. Jason Richmond Compson announc
参加英文e the Three Times .
Days. Aren’t you even going to open it marriage of their daughter Candace that liquor teaches you to confu the means with the end . I am. Drink. I was not…. (Faulkner, 1995, p. 173)
In this direct interior monologue, the author has disappeared entirely. It is in first-person, the ten is,
willy-nilly, past, prent, or future as Quentin’s mind dictates; broken ntences or overlapping phras and ntences are listed; and there are no commentaries, no stage directions from the author. Thus, the unuttered consciousness before it is formulated for deliberate speech is faithfully recorded.
Soliloquy ―Near-Surface Consciousness
In the third-ction of The Sound and the Fury , Faulkner turns to soliloquy on a surface, communicating
level to depict consciousness of Jason, the only sane one among the Compson brothers. Instead of
communicating psychic identity as in the first two ctions, soliloquy here communicates Jason’s e
motions and ideas, which are related to a plot and action. Since it is “less candid… and more limited in the depth of consciousness” (Humphrey, 1954, p. 36) compared with direct interior monologue, soliloquy is proper to prent Jason’s level of consciousness clo to the surface. Though Jason’s psychic content and process are still reprented directly from him to readers without the prence of an author, they em to be directed to a formal and immediate audience. Thus, his monologue is characterized by a greater coherence.
No doubt, As I Lay Dying is one of the highly successful novels in English, which u the soliloquy to
depict the stream-of-consciousness. It is compod entirely of the soliloquies of 15 characters. Obviously, the novel is greatly concerned with tho attitudes or feelings that lie on the threshold of consciousness. Take
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MULTIMODALITY OF INTERIOR MONOLOGUES 415
Jewel’s excerpt as an example, which shows his annoyance at his brother Cash who makes the coffin under the
mother’s death-room window:
It’s becau he stays out there, right under the window, hammering and sawing on that goddamn box. Where she’s got to e him. Where every breath she draws is full of his knocking and sawing where she can e him saying See. See what a
绝配网good one I am making for you. I told him to go somewhere el. I said Good God do you want to e her in it. It’s like
when he was a little boy and she says if she had some fertilizer she would try to rai some flowers and he taken the bread
phhpan and brought it back from the barn full of dung. (Faulkner, 1964, p. 14)
The passage here is definitely more coherent than that of direct interior monologue examined before. But signs of stream-of-consciousness are unmistakable. Such a fragment as “where she is got to e him” indicates
the thought as it arrives, just as does the last ntence, with three independent claus, reprenting only one
image unverbalized in Jewel’s consciousness. Thus, soliloquy can be found to achieve greater coherence and
more unity as well as a successful combination of interior stream of consciousness with exterior action. Yet
Faulkner still blends direct interior monologue with soliloquy, such as the rendering of Vardaman’s chaotic
inner life when he is in the face of Darl’s being nt to Jackson (Section 56).
Omniscient Description―Sane Consciousness
In the last ction of The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner adopts the more conventional omniscient description. What is unusual here is that it is not the common description of the appearance or actions of
characters but the prentation of the psychic content and process of a character by an omniscient author
through conventional methods of narration and description.
bow wow
…And he drove on out of the bells and out of town, thinking of himlf slogging through the mud, hunting a team.
“And every damn one of them will be at church.” He thought of how he’d find a church at last and take a team and of the
owner coming out, shouting at him and of himlf striking the man down. “I’m Jason Compson. See if you can stop me.
See if you can elect a man to office that can stop me,” he said, thinking of himlf entering the courthou with a file of
soldiers and dragging the sheriff out. (Faulkner, 1995, pp. 305-306)
The depiction of Jason’s consciousness when he pursues his niece Quentin illustrates this technique well.
Although employing the conventional third-person description, Jason’s consciousness in its unspoken and
国家地理下载incoherent state is delineated.
Conclusion
It is universally acknowledged that consciousness is in its prespeech levels unpatterned and a consciousness by its nature exists independent of action. Maybe that explains why it remains a tough problem
for stream-of-consciousness writers to record it. Faulkner shows his brilliancy in his inventive techniques to
remember的用法prerve the eming privacy of consciousness, to suspend mental content and to reprent the fluidity of
consciousness. The multimodality of interior monologues, in particular, in his stream-of-consciousness novels
helps a lot to disclo consciousness on different levels to the full. It is such strenuous and daring technical
experiments in his creation that establishes Faulkner’s prominent position on a par with James Joyce and
特朗普宣布退出巴黎协定
亲人的英文
Virginia Woolf in the great tradition of stream-of-consciousness writing.
References
Baldick, C. (2000). Oxford conci dictionary of literary terms. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
Bickerton, D. (1967). Modes of interior monologue: A formal definition. Modern Language Quarterly, 28(2), 229-239.
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MULTIMODALITY OF INTERIOR MONOLOGUES 416 Faulkner, W. (1964). As I lay dying . New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books.
Faulkner, W. (1995). The sound and the fury . New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books.
Humphrey, R. (1954). Stream of consciousness in the modern novel . Berkeley: University of California Press.
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