stream of consciousness//

Stream of consciousness is defined as a literary style in which a character's thoughts, feelings, and reactions are depicted in a continuous flow uninterrupted by objective description or conventional dialogue. This enables the readers to have a deeper understanding as to how the character is feeling. This gives the readers a clearer perspective and a more straightforward self dialogue which allows the readers to see what the author is trying to put out. In the novel, The Thief and The Dogs this was integrated by the author Naguib Mahfouz through the development of the characterization of the main character, Said Mahran. The novel circled around the uprise and downfall of the main character and with the use of stream of consciousness, it allows the readers to keep up with the development of the character itself with the transparency of the thoughts and inner turmoils of the main character accordingly with the narration. In chapter one, Said says to himself “I swear to God, I hate you all” after thinking about what his ex-wife and his ex-friend did to him. This straightforwardly addresses his emotion and feelings towards his ex-wife, Nabawiyya and Ilish because of his past experience with them. This establishes the mood of the novel being full of hatred and negativity. The novel effectively integrated clear and good shifts from the narration to the dialogues or thoughts in a way that both corresponds and supports each other and adds to the ongoing characterization of the main character. An evidence for this would be when Said visited his old friend’s office in chapter three and thought to himself how it seems like a very difficult place to break into and how “the rows of cars surrounding it were like guards around a prison”. This adds to the characterization of Said being criminally minded all the time despite just getting released from prison.

However, the continuous stream of consciousness integrated in the novel may seem confusing as it may speeden up the narration and the sequencing of events. It may make the novel seem a bit rushed because of the lack of transition. Some readers might see it as misleading as some may mistaken the thoughts for narration or vice versa. This is why this novel must be read with extreme caution. Furthermore, the readers having access to the private thoughts of Said doesn’t restrict any confusion with regards to his upbringing because all his thoughts and dialogues corresponds to why he’s in the situation he’s in.  It gives out a more realistic and a more natural feel of the events as it doesn’t seem too structured and too complex. The novel doesn’t involve too much figurative language other than the numerous amount of animal imagery and a few metaphorical statements.

In conclusion, I’d say the stream of consciousness technique allows the readers to have a deeper understanding of the novel because it allows access to the inner turmoils of the main character and it supports a more flowy kind of narration which establishes a right amount of tension and anticipation for the readers.