Preliminary Study Of Lengthy Stream Of Consciousness Novel Mode Of Discourse

Virginia Woolf, whose works include novels, proses, commentaries, letters, diaries, and so on, has attained great achievements in British as well as world literature. Jacob's room, Mrs Dalloway, To the lighthouse, and The Waves are some important representative works of her stream-of-consciousness novels. She has, in these texts, actively developed her writing skills to achieve the best effect of revealing the innermost thinking of the characters. These skills have earned her the title of "experimental novelist", meanwhile, diversifying the style of writing as well as engendering certain common features - the similarities among the perspective of narration, the organization of language, and the portrayal of innermost being. The mode of expression in Jacob's room, Mrs Dalloway, To the lighthouse, and The Waves, after being integrated, makes the texts focus on the signified (signifte) from the signifier, and reflects Woolf's query about modernity. This thesis is to probe into these in four parts.The first part is mainly about the changing perspective of narration. This feature, in the four novels of Jacob's room, Mrs Dalloway, To the lighthouse, and The Waves, is embodied in the alternation and transformation of zero focalization and inner localization, as well as the inseparable interconnection between variable inner focalization and multiple inner focalization. While she was creating new models of stream-of-consciousness novels, Virginia Woolf continued partially to follow the zero-focalization perspective of narration, which became the skeleton of the construction of a text. The inseparable interconnection between variable inner focalization and multiple inner focalization is the chief content of her text's perspective: the variable inner focalization promotes the progress of consciousness, while the multiple inner focalization depicts the lifelike characters.The second part discusses the flexible organization of language. The language in Jacob's room, Mrs Dalloway, To the lighthouse, and The Waves presents three forms. Inthe respect of pronunciation, there are strong and weak, slow and quick rhythms, which produces the beauty of cadence. In terms of grammar, the diction is common but meaningful, natural but elegant and the highlighted application of color words strengthens the picturesque beauty of the texts. Regarding rhetoric, the chief figure of speech is simile, with metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche as supplements and all of these figures of speech, together with personification and hyperbole, fully manifest the richness of text language.The third part is chiefly related to the varied portrayal of innermost being. Writers of stream-of-consciousness novels believe that the realness of life is reflected in humans' subjective sensation and perceptual activities. Life, more often than not, emerges in the reflection of mind; therefore, it is of utmost importance to highlight the character's mind. In this respect, Woolf usually employs such techniques as internal analysis, internal monologue, recollection, free association, and symbolic marks.The last part of the thesis summarizes the above discussions, further intensifying the function of the mode of expression in Jacob's room, Mrs Dalloway, To the lighthouse, and The Waves. Virginia Woolf combines the changing perspective of narration, the flexible organization of language, the varied portrayal of innermost being, which constructs the signifier of the four full-length stream-of-consciousness novels, and leads to the signified (signifie) . These point out the situation in which human has lost its ego, thus questioning about modernity.