Literary And Non-literary Factors In Virginia Woolf's Stream Of Consciousness Novels

In her Modern Fiction, Virginia Woolf points out that novels should depict real life, focusing on the inner reality of individual to display the truth. This view outlines her creative stimulus for stream of consciousness novels. This thesis makes a more detailed study on the stream of consciousness novels of Woolfs from a theoretical aspect focusing on exploring the effects of literary and non-literary factors in her writing.This thesis consists of four chapters. In the first one, the macro-analysis of stream of consciousness novels' historical, philosophical, psychological and cultural sources, of which the final one is frequently neglected, is presented; it also deals with the biography of Virginia Woolf and the summary of her four representative stream of consciousness novels, namely Jacob's Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and finally The Waves.The second chapter begins its micro-analysis of these four novels from the literary point of view. Apart from the four basic techniques put forward by Humphrey-direct interior monologue, indirect interior monologue, omniscient description and soliloquy respectively-there also appear certain dramatic impersonal element and poetic symbols.The third chapter is also from the micro-point of view. It proves that, besides the stream of consciousness writing techniques, Woolf adopts cinematic montage, musical polyphonic description and some characteristics of painting simultaneously, thus her novels become a kind of unique and general art form, the only form that can be labeled stream of consciousness novel. The final part is the conclusion.