Literature review for Richman MA thesis

James's psychological concepts pose several problems for the "stream of consciousness" novelist. Since thought is personal,how does the novelist enter or know a character's thoughts? In reality, novelists really only know their own unspoken thoughts. They have few tools with which to dissect the mind of an outside
person or character.
Another obstacle in portraying "stream of consciousness"
thought as defined by William James lies in the nature of the
serially printed word itself. Can the horizontal sequence of
individually placed words on a page capture the depth of the
stream of thought as conceived by James and other theorists of the "stream of consciousness"? In order to deal with these
questions, the "stream of consciousness" novelist does create
special literary effects to create the illusion of entering a
character's mind.
In representing the flow of thought in Ulysses, Joyce relied on the technique of the silent monologue or soliloquy to carry the thoughts of his three main characters. This technique had been used earlier by Edouard Dujardin in his novel Les Lauriers sont coup's, which was originally published in 1887. The virtue of Dujardin's internal monologue is that it posts the reader in the character's mind to overhear not only unspoken thoughts, but also thoughts which the character may only be partially aware of.
The use of an internal monologue thereby enables the stream of consciousness novelist to record underlying levels of thought which proceed from the subconscious to the conscious mind.
Joyce not only appropriated and refined the internal, or
inner, monologue he found in Dujardin's novel, but, as Harry
Levin points out, he also borrowed concepts, ideas, and
techniques from other arts.
Thus the very form of Joyce's book is an elusive and
eclectic Summa of its age: the montage of the cinema,
impressionism in painting, leit-motif in music, the
free association of psychoanalysis, and vitalism in
philosophy. Take of these elements all that is fusible,
and perhaps more, and you have the style of Ulysses.5

In the "Nausicaa" episode there are four main techniques
used to render "stream of consciousness" method. They are the
internal monologue, the use of montage-like devices, prose
rhythms that imitate the stages of sexual arousal and discharge ("tumescence-detumescence"), and the symbolization of certain everyday objects to reflect on the meaning and significance of actions taken by the characters.
Joyce uses two distinct internal monologues in the
"Nausicaa" episode which are in turn controlled by the device of an intrusive author. Bloom's internal monologue is cast in the first person and contains a minimum amount of intrusive comments by the author. Since it is necessary for the author to provide some directions and information to get his character to move about without contrivance, the intrusive author enters Bloom's internal monologue at times to give, with a softly modulated voice, "stage directions and cues."
In the case of Gerty MacDowell's internal monologue,
however, Joyce exercises even greater circumspection in order to avoid the appearance of intrusiveness. For a number of different reasons, Joyce presents Gerty as if she were the heroine of a current dime-store novel of romance. In this way Gerty's internal monologue operates both as a representation of her own "stream of consciousness" and as an occasion for Joyce's parody of a popular literary form. These are the novels we assume Gerty has been reading as a way of building up her own fantasy life.
For the most part, we get the content of Gerty's mind and her manner of free association reflected in the voice of a gently mocking narrator. Through the process of Joycean satire, the author both presents an illusion of Gerty MacDowell's "stream of consciousness" and comments on it as well. Since Gerty MacDowell's internal monologue is presented in the voice of a chatty popular novelist, in my analysis I refer to it as a "reflected internal monologue."
Whether it is the direct monologue of Bloom or the
"reflected" one of Gerty's, the point of view always remains
fixed to the character with the exceptional entrances of the
intrusive author who makes his presence felt somewhat like that of an offstage director.
As Levin points out, "the movement of Joyce's style, the
thought of his characters, is like unreeling film; his method of construction, the arrangement of this raw material involves the crucial operation of montage."6
In motion pictures montage is the production of a rapid
succession of images to illustrate an association of ideas. For example, a man's expressionless face may be flashed on the screen immediately followed by the image of a steaming bowl of soup, which is then again followed by the same picture of the man's face. The idea of hunger is expressed to the audience by the succession of these two reoccurring images. Joyce's application of this motion picture technique in Ulysses is as complicated as it is pervasive. In the first chapter of this paper, however, I will show exactly how the technique is used in particular sections of the "Nausicaa" episode and discuss its significance.
Stuart Gilbert calls the technique of the episode
"tumescence-detumescence." According to Gilbert the movement of the episode from a "quiet opening, a long crescendo of turgid, rhapsodic prose towards a climax, a pyrotechnic explosion, a dying fall, silence" can be summed up by the medical psychosexual term "tumescence-detumescence."7 Gilbert, although he implies it
in his definition, does not directly link Bloom's masturbation with the technique. The significance of the technique is that it reflects the various stages of both Bloom's and Gerty's sexual feelings. As such, it is an important technical device of the "stream of consciousness" effect throughout the episode. The application of a "tumescent-detumescent" effect of the prose
style captures both the thought and action of the characters
involved in this episode.
In addition to the techniques I have mentioned, I will also discuss the use of several symbols which are also used to represent both the actions and feelings of the characters as well as their thought processes. The illusion of "stream of consciousness" is for the most part created by the use of all these various technical devices working together for a "unity of effect."
Various studies of Ulysses include brief and incomplete
commentaries on the techniques used in the "Nausicaa" episode. Stuart Gilbert's study provides a methodical episode-by-episode analysis of Ulysses. The Gilbert study focuses on the Homeric parallels and provides keys for a symbolic exegesis of the work, but it overlooks less obvious constructional elements of the novel as a work of "stream of consciousness" fiction.
Robert Humphrey comes close to the truth of the nature of the narration when he analyzes a representative passage from Gerty's "stream of consciousness" in the following terms: "This passage, in context, is presented in the manner of straight narrative by the author; but it is distinguished by being in the fanciful, romantic idiom
of the dreamy Gerty, and the material reflects the
content of such a person's consciousness, especially
its manner of associating. So what we have is, in
effect, far more direct representation than mere
description of Gerty's consciousness, for it is the
mode of her consciousness that is represented. The
consciousness is never presented directly, because the
author is always present as the omniscient author with
his comments. Through the device of a parody of
sentimental fiction, the author gives an apparent
interpretation, without any attempt to conceal himself
from the reader, of Gerty's daydream consciousness."8