The Stream Of Consciousness Technique In Hemingway's Works

This dissertation is to explore some questions concerning Ernest Hemingway's adoption of the stream of consciousness technique in his works, as a systematic study on this topic enables us to have a more complete understanding of Hemingway's writing skills and also helps us to better comprehend his works.Blooming in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century, stream of consciousness may be one of the most frequently used narrative skills that have been adopted by many writers and it is now an almost indispensable term in modern literary writing and criticism. In the introduction of this dissertation, I will firstly discuss the theoretical and social origin, the characteristics, the charm and weak points, and the influence of the stream of consciousness technique. Then I will point out that Hemingway, who was influenced by modernist trend of thought and good at learning from others, also used the technique in an flexible and creative way.In Chapter , would like to discuss the function of Hemingway's stream of consciousness. For Hemingway, the stream of consciousness technique is an instrument finely tuned to the portrayal of his characters. With the technique, the plot of his works moves smoothly forward, the theme is better exposed and his works possess more artistic charm when life is presented in a more vivid and authentic way.Chapter is a discussion of the characteristics of Hemingway's stream ofconsciousness. As a writer who is sensitive to language, Hemingway forms his personalstyle for his stream of consciousness narration, either in content, in structure or in language. He pays attention to the realistic content of his stream of consciousness narratives and mainly describes a character's consciousness. However, in some of his stream of consciousness narratives, he also implicitly reforms the technique by indirectlydescribing the consciousness and the subconscious of the character. Moreover, Hemingway uses various methods such as symbol, intuitional art, multi-person presentation to make the characters' consciousness directly "visible" to the reader. Hemingway's stream of consciousness descriptions are often linked with a specific event or scene. It is a kind of "ordered" and "reflective" consciousness which is rational, logical and coherent. In addition, well known for his "iceberg theory", Hemingway uses a language that is spare, clear, simple, and unadorned. This style can also be shown by his stream of consciousness narratives. However, we find that some of them are also rather complex. I thus argue that Hemingway often makes adjustment to his stream of consciousness narratives to meet the needs of his writing, so his stream of consciousness narratives are adaptive and creative in content, in structure or in language.In conclusion, I affirm that in Hemingway's works, realism and modernism are interwoven together. Hemingway is able to achieve a good combination between his writing skill and his writing philosophy, and the form and content in his works suit each other well. Hemingway indicates the tendency in stream of consciousness writing, which is to see stream of consciousness as a subject matter and a means for characterization instead of using it as an exclusive subject matter or method of the whole work.