The Waves: Stream Of Consciousness

Virginia Woolf is one of the most outstanding British modernist writers in the first half of the twentieth century, a period full of the conflicts of the new and the old, unsatisfied with the traditional narrative in fiction, most of the modernist writers tried to find new ways to reflect the reality, especially the inner world of the modern men. Being an important figure in modernist writing, Virginia Woolf practises and develops the techniques of stream of consciousness. Pursuing the reality as the perpetual goal, Woolf faithfully focuses on the consciousness of people in her works instead of on the detailed depicting of characters and plots. The exquisite techniques and the artistic effect realized in her works credit her as the giant of stream of consciousness novels.The Waves is undoubtedly a masterpiece of Woolf's stream of consciousness creation. The novel is about the successive stages of six different characters'lives, childhood, youth, middle age and old age. Each stage corresponds to the changing position of the sunlight and the movement of the sea waves in a day. In this novel, Woolf practises the techniques of stream of consciousness in full play. Through the movement of consciousness reflected in the monologues made by the six characters, the author has voiced out modern man's attitude towards life, death, fear, desires, alienation and longing for identity.The project of this thesis is, first of all to trace the background of psych-analysis related to stream of consciousness, and then give a detailed study of how Woolf uses the techniques and how the techniques function to achieve artistic effects. The study of The Waves would be beneficial not only to our better understanding of stream of consciousness novels, but also of modernist literature. This thesis is composed of four chapters plus"Introduction"and"Conclusion"."Introduction"briefly introduces Woolf's life and the greatness of her writing. Chapter One presents Woolf's creative ideas and some background information on the writing and critical reviews of The Waves. Meanwhile a brief introduction to the source of stream of consciousness novels has been offered, which includes the theoretical source, literary source and the historical background. Chapter Two focuses on the unique structure. By analyzing the similar elements of this novel with that of music and art, it also gives a detailed study of the artistic effect revealed in this novel. Chapter Three deals with the characterization and different voices embedded in the text. Without vividly depicting the characters, Woolf records their stream of consciousness by interior monologue, through which the reader can get a clear sense of the characters'attitude towards life. Chapter Four focuses on the flowing narrative---free association, which keeps the consistent relationship between the narrative and the flowing consciousness. The"Conclusion"restates Woolf's experiments of techniques of stream of consciousness and the philosophy of life conveyed in The Waves, which make this stream of consciousness novel an extraordinary work in literature.