VIRGINIA WOOLF AND INTERIOR MONOLOGUE IN HER NOVELS

"Blah Blah Blah (CC BY-NC 2.0)  by  id.-iom

INTRODUCTION

"A monologue is presented by a single character, most often to express their mental thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience."

 (Hargrave)

Virginia Woolf beautifully uses both the techniques whether its stream of consciousness or interior monologue she continued to use the same technique in her subsequent novels as well.  It is already mentioned that Woolf was not at all satisfied with the traditional method of writing novels.

              In an essay Modern Fiction she had criticized novelist like Arnold Bennet and John Galsworthy for the 'Naturalistic' manner in which they had written their novels. James Joyce probed the same inner consciousness in Ulysses which Woolf probed in Mrs. Dalloway. Although there is an incessant flow of thoughts which has been given the technical name of 'the stream of consciousness' likewise every human being, not otherwise occupied, keeps talking to himself in his own mind about various things and about various persons. This talk, when a man holds within himself has technically been called Interior monologues; both are abundantly used by Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway as well as To the Lighthouse.

INTERIOR MONOLOGUE AND STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 

  Interior monologue is a stylized way of thinking out loud. In fact many novelists used both the terms interior monologue and stream of consciousness as synonyms. One of the techniques for presenting stream-of-consciousness is interior monologue. Here interior means the inside of a mind, and monologue meaning, literally, spoken by one voice.

      Interior + Monologue

The inside of the mind                                      Spoken by one voice

Harman and Holman say this about interior monologue:

      Recording the internal emotional experience of the character, it reaches downward to the non verbalized level where images must be used to represent sensation or emotions. It assumes the unrestricted and uncensored portrayal of interior experience. It gives, therefore, the appearance of being illogical and associational.

 (CTVA 319 Cont)

SEEMS SIMILAR BUT ARE DIFFERENT

• Interior monologue 
• Stream of consciousness 
• Soliloquy 
• Aside

All these four terms are quite confusing but in actuality they are quite different with different meanings. Unlike stream of consciousness, an interior monologue can be integrated into a third person narrative. The point of view of characters thoughts are woven into authorial description using their own language, whereas narrative is a narrator talking. On the other hand, stream of consciousness  specifically to a first person narrative. It tends to be less ordered than interior monologue.

Soliloquy, is act of speaking one's thought aloud when oneself or regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in the play whereas it’s confused by the term aside because they are similar but not the same.  Soliloquy is a long speech and aside is a short comment. It reveals a short thought not a complex one like soliloquy.

One of the most famous examples for interior monologue is James Joyce's Ulysses (1922). In this chapter four, whole section page after page presents Molly Bloom's consciousness to the reader entirely in interior monologue.

…If his nose bleeds You’d think it was O tragic and that dying looking one off the south circular when he sprained his foot at the choir party at the sugar loaf Mountain the day I wore that dress Miss Stalk bringing him flowers the worst old ones she could find at the bottom of the basket anything at all to get into a man's bedroom with her old maids voice trying to imagine he was dying on account of her own to never see thy face again though he looked more like a man with his beard a big grown in the bed father was the same besides I hate bandaging and dosing when he cut his toe with the razor paring his corns afraid had get blood poisoning…

(Joyce 519)

Whereas Shakespeare's works are also good examples of using interior monologue here is the example of it from his renowned play Hamlet.

I am Ophelia daughter of Polonius, sister to Laertes, my family is of the utmost importance to me, and all that they say I shall obey. Prince Hamlet so passionately expresses his love for me, that nothing short of smiles can my heart contain. The thought that he of such grace and stature could fall for my plain personality leaves me hesitant, yet anxious toward all that could come. Here now in front of me, my sweet loving brother is protecting me… 

(I Am Ophelia)

Another example of interior monologue is again from Shakespeare's play Macbeth.

Is this a dagger which I see before me? The handle toward my hand? Came, let me clutch thee! I have thee not, and yet I see the still, Art thou no. fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? Or art though but a dagger of the mind, a false creation proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain... 

(Macbeth)

INTERIOR MONOLOGUE IN MRS DALLOWAY

Virginia Woolf, among stream of consciousness writers relies most on the indirect interior monologue and uses it with a great skill. Her novels used the narrated monologue form, by which though the third person reference is maintained by which the characters own mental language can be expressed. In Mrs. Dalloway it can be seen that the readers seen London from Clarissa's perspective and gets to know about her past experiences. The whole novel switches from present to past and past to present.

"Fear no more the heat O’ the sun nor the furious winter's rages"               

(Woolf 13)

The above line has been taken from the novel Mrs. Dalloway showing the interior monologue expressed by Mrs. Dalloway or Clarissa Dalloway originally this quotation is taken from Shakespeare's plays Cymbeline. These words are repeated or eluded to many times throughout the novel, sometimes by Clarissa Dalloway and sometimes by Septimus.

Clarissa Dalloway first reads the lines from Cymbeline in a book shop window, when she was on her way to buy the flowers for the party and the significance of these lines putting stress on the consequences of World War I. It says death is not a thing to be feared, but rather it should be seen as a relief from the hard struggle of life. 

And she began to go with Miss Pym from jar to jar, choosing, nonsense, nonsense, she said to herself, more and more gently, as if this beauty, this scent, this color, and miss Pym liking her, trusting her, were a wave which she let flow ones her and up and up when – oh! A pistol shot in the street outside! 

(Woolf 17-18)

The above following passage is a classic example for the frequent use of narrated monologue or free indirect discourse. It reproduces Dalloway's thoughts and perceptions, reproducing the associative connections of stream of consciousness, when she was selecting flowers for her party. Here Woolf's skill in the use of memory to unite Clarissa and Septimus by sharing entwined  experiences both characters mirror each other and run parallel in the narrative. Although they never met in a whole novel but their dialogue linked with each other as they are characters double. As the earlier lines were describing Clarissa buying flowers and suddenly, Woolf switches the narration from Clarissa to third person to introduce Septimus a war veteran suffering from shall shock who is standing still on the pavement of Bond Street.

INTERIOR MONOLOGUE IN TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

To the lighthouse is another great example of interior monologue; whole novel has a straight, conventional narration and description. It has been used very frequently throughout the novel, its special character of seeing to be always within the consciousness of the chief characters, Woolf says in her essay Modern Fiction.

"Let us record the atom as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearances, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness". 

(Heffernan)

Let us examine the following passage in the first chapter of part one

… For how would you like to be shut for a whole month at a time, and possibly more in stormy weather, upon a rock the size of a tennis lawn? She would ask " and to have no letters and newspaper and to see nobody, if you were married, not to see your wife, not to know how your children were, If they were ill, if they had fallen down and broken their legs or arms : to see the same dreary waves breaking week after week and then a dreadful storm coming, and the windows covered with spray, and birds dashed against the lamp, and the whole your nose out of doors for fear of being swept  into the sea? How would you like that? She asked …

 (Woolf 9)

The passage above is represented in the manner of straight narration by the author but it is clearly what the character feels and thinks and it reflects the character's consciousness and inner thought. In this passage Woolf facilitates the indirect interior monologue. Secondly, she presents Mrs. Ramsay's consciousness by the guiding phrases 'she would ask' and 'she asked' to make the reader wonder about unhurriedly in Mrs. Ramsay’s consciousness. Thirdly, here she employs semicolons to indicate the continuation of consciousness. The use of semicolons character Woolf's skill in dealing with indirect interior monologue, as also shown in the following except:

Yes, he did say disagreeable things, Mrs. Ramsay admitted: it was odious of him to rub this in, and make James still more disappointed: but at the same time, she would not let them laugh at him. The atheist they called him: ‘The little atheist’. Rose mocked him; Prue mocked him: even old Badger without a tooth in his head had bit him … 

(Woolf 9)

The above passage states that the occasionally baffling similarity between a narrator's utterance and omniscient – narrator commentary. It demonstrates, however, how punctuation can wonderfully signal the continuation of consciousness sometimes. The extraordinary subtlety of skill here is located in the use of the semicolon after ‘They called him’ had she not placed a semi-colon there, the reader might easily be misled to think that the sentence ‘but at the same times, she would not let them laugh at him.' Had she not placed a semicolon there, the reader might easily be misled to think that the sentence ‘but at the same time, she would not let them laugh at him is an omniscient – narrator commentary so in this passage, with the help of semicolons, the reader can easily discern what is the character's interior monologue and when it begins and halts.

"James is like a kite where Mrs. Ramsay is holding the other end."

(To the Lighthouse)

The above lines are the example of interior monologue where Lily Briscoe is in the garden preparing her painting and all of a sudden she sees Mrs. Ramsay sitting on a chair with his beloved son James. Consequently Lily says and believes that James and Mrs. Ramsay together have a unique intimate relation which is selfless, where James is a kite and Mrs. Ramsay is holding an another end.

"What am I doing here with this quiet family pretending to be a Banquette … having dinner". 

(To the Lighthouse)

The above interior monologue is said by Charles Tansley who is a student of Mr. Ramsay's who was invited to the house for the summer, he came from a middle class family and was working very hard to get his education but Mr. Ramsay is not at all reading his works, he used to praise him always, he somewhere suffers from his own morality and insignificance. He always used to get involved in his own achievements sometimes. The whole family is indulged in throwing party without reason and cheering for senseless issues and used to get socialized which same where is becoming the reason of Tansley's frustration and consequently he says ‘what am I doing here.’


CONCLUSION 

In this way Virginia Woolf beautifully used the technique of interior monologue sometimes for the character of Mrs. Ramsay sometimes for Lily Briscoe, Mr. Ramsay, James, Charles Tansley.