Some techniques for representing the interior monologue

The techniques described below are characteristic of, but not exclusive to, Modernist
narratives, and the examples all come from Modernist texts.

Free indirect discourse/style

In this technique, the narrative voice takes on the characteristics of the thought-processes
or speech-patterns of the character. The narrative moves into the character’s
consciousness, but does not abandon the authority of the narrative voice, so the pronouns
remain third-person (‘he’ or ‘she’ rather than ‘I’).
Example
Again she felt Jesus in the countryside. Ah he would lift up the lambs in his arms!
Ah, and she was the lamb. Again, in the morning, going down the lane, she heard
the ewe call, and the lambs came running…to the udder… sucking, vibrating with
bliss… Oh, and the bliss, the bliss! She could scarcely tear herself away. (D.H.
Lawrence, Sons and Lovers)

This example is in free indirect style, as opposed to free indirect discourse, as no words
are spoken aloud. It is not unique to Modernism; it appears in the work of, for example,
Jane Austen.

Subjective method
This is often found in the work of Dorothy Richardson. It is signalled by a transition from
‘she/he’ (the third person) to ‘you’ (the second person, which can stand for ‘one’ or ‘I’),
and the use of three dots to indicate gaps and pauses, and shifts of thought. Richardson’s
narratives often slip from the indirect transcription of a character’s consciousness to a
more direct record of the thoughts.
Example
Going along, along, the twilight hides your shabby clothes. They are not shabby.
They are clothes you go along in, funny; jolly. Everything’s here, any bit of
anything, clear in your brain; you can look at it. What a terrific thing a person is,
bigger than anything. How funny it is to be a person. You can never not have been
a person. Bouleversement. It’s a fait bouleversant. Christ-how-rummy. It’s
enough. [….] Oh let the solid ground not fail beneath my feet, until I am quite quite
sure… Hallo, old Euston Road, beloved of my soul, my own country, my native
heath. (The Tunnel, London, Duckworth, 1919)
The stabilising authorial presence is gone; so is the filter between readers and characters.
We therefore receive the characters’ impressions more directly. The pronouns used
alternate between the second-person pronoun ‘you’ and the first-person pronoun ‘I’ rather
than the third-person pronouns ‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘they’.

Stream of consciousness
The term comes from William James (psychologist brother of Henry), Principles of
Psychology (New York, Henry Holt, 1890) but was probably first used critically by May
Sinclair in a review of early volumes of Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage in 1918
(London, Duckworth, 1938):
 Nothing happens. It is just life going on and on. It is Miriam Henderson’s stream
of consciousness going on and on. And in neither is there any grossly discernable
beginning or middle or end.

Example
A quarter after what an unearthly hour I suppose theyre just getting up in China
combing out their pigtails for the day well soon have the nuns ringing the angelus
they’ve nobody coming in to spoil their sleep except an odd priest or two for his
night office or the alarmclock next door at cockshout clattering the brains out of
itself let me see if I can doze off 12345 what kind of flowers are those they
invented like the stars the wallpaper in Lombard street …
(James Joyce, ‘Penelope’, Ulysses)

Project Gutenberg links:

rsync://rsync.mirrorservice.org/ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03/ulyss12.t
xt (UK)

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/ulyss12.txt (US)

Note the lack of punctuation; first person pronouns; change of direction; rambling; gaps.

In Joyce’s work, the narration cuts between differing perspectives and voices in duets and
polyphonies, and the different styles of speech can appear to exercise a kind of
gravitational pull, affecting those near them.
Example
The coals were reddening.
Another slice of bread and butter: three, four: right. She didn’t like her plate
full. Right. He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off the hob and set it sideways
on the fire. It sat there, dull and squat, its spout stuck out. Cup of tea soon. Good.
Mouth dry.
The cat walked stiffly around a leg of the table with tail on high.
- Mkgnao!
- O, there you are, Mr Bloom said, turning from the fire. The cat mewed in
answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the table, mewing. Just how
she stalks over my writingtable. Prr. Scratch my head. Prr.
Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly the lithe black form. Clean to see: the
gloss of her sleek hide, the white buttons under the butt of her tail, the green
flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on his knees.
- Milk for the pussens, he said.
- Mrkgnao! The cat cried.
They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than we
understand them. She understands all she wants to. Vindictive too. Cruel. Her
nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it. Wonder what I look like to her.
Height of a tower? No, she can jump me. (James Joyce, ‘Calypso’, Ulysses)