← Stream of Consciousness Workshop
Module Four
A Tour Through Stream of Consciousness in Literature
Stream of consciousness was pioneered in the early twentieth century by a handful of bold writers who wanted to capture how the mind actually works. Let’s meet them and read some of what they wrote.
As you read each passage, don’t worry about understanding every word. Instead, pay attention to how the writing feels—how it moves, where it jumps, what it makes you notice. You’re not studying for a test. You’re learning to hear a new kind of music.
Dorothy Richardson
The Pioneer
Dorothy Richardson wrote a nine-volume series of novels called Pilgrimage, beginning in 1915. It is considered the first stream-of-consciousness novel in English. A critic wrote of it: “There is no drama, no situation, no set scene. Nothing happens. It is just life going on and on.”
There was nothing to look forward to now but governessing and old age. Perhaps Miss Gilkes was right…. Get rid of men and muddles and have things just ordinary and be happy. “Make up your mind to be happy. You can be perfectly happy without anyone to think about….” Wearing that large cameo brooch—long, white, flat-fingered hands and that quiet little laugh…. The piano-organ had reached its last tune. In the midst of the final flourish of notes the door flew open. Miriam got quickly to her feet and felt for matches.
— Dorothy Richardson, Pilgrimage (1921)
What to Notice
Count the subjects in this short passage: the future, Miss Gilkes’s advice, the cameo brooch, hands, a laugh, the piano-organ, the door, matches. At least ten different things in just a few sentences. That’s how minds work.
T. S. Eliot
The Poet
Stream of consciousness doesn’t only appear in novels. The poet T. S. Eliot used it in one of the most famous poems of the twentieth century. His character J. Alfred Prufrock is an anxious, aging man whose thoughts drift and loop:
I grow old… I grow old…
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.I do not think that they will sing to me.
— T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915)
What to Notice
Aging, trousers, hair, a peach, the beach, mermaids—these thoughts leap from one to the next by feeling and sound, not logic. “Rolled” rhymes with “old,” “peach” leads to “beach.”
Virginia Woolf
Master of Association
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway follows a woman’s thoughts as she walks through London on a single day:
“That is all,” she said, looking at the fishmonger’s. “That is all,” she repeated, pausing for a moment at the window of a glove shop where, before the War, you could buy almost perfect gloves. And her old Uncle William used to say a lady is known by her shoes and her gloves. He had turned on his bed one morning in the middle of the War. He had said, “I have had enough.” Gloves and shoes; she had a passion for gloves; but her own daughter, her Elizabeth, cared not a straw for either of them.
— Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (1925)
What to Notice
Watch the chain of associations: fishmonger → glove shop → memory of gloves before the war → Uncle William’s saying → Uncle William’s death → back to gloves → her daughter Elizabeth. Each thought triggers the next.
James Joyce
The Radical
The most famous stream-of-consciousness passage in all of literature comes at the end of James Joyce’s Ulysses. The character Molly Bloom is lying in bed, and her thoughts pour out with almost no punctuation:
…the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
— James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)
What to Notice
Joyce removes nearly all punctuation so there’s no place to stop. The thoughts flow in one long, building stream, connected by “and” and “yes.” Try reading this passage aloud and you’ll feel the momentum.
Toni Morrison
Voice from the Deep
In her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison gives voice to a character who seems to be speaking from the Middle Passage—the horrific ocean crossing endured by enslaved Africans:
I know she does not like it now there is room to crouch and to watch the crouching others it is the crouching that is now always now inside the woman with my face is in the sea a hot thing In the beginning I could see her I could not help her because the clouds were in the way in the beginning I could see her the shining in her ears she does not like the circle around her neck I know this I look hard at her so she will know that the clouds are in the way…
— Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)
What to Notice
Morrison uses stream of consciousness to voice an experience so overwhelming that normal sentences cannot hold it. The repetition creates a chant-like rhythm. The lack of punctuation traps you in continuous, unbroken experience.
Samuel Beckett
The Minimalist
Samuel Beckett strips stream of consciousness down to almost nothing—bare observations, fragments of awareness:
Bright at last close of a dark day the sun shines out at last and goes down. Sitting quite still at valley window normally turn head now and see it the sun low in the southwest sinking. Even get up certain moods and go stand by western window quite still watching it sink and then the afterglow.
— Samuel Beckett, “Still”
What to Notice
Where Joyce gives you a flood, Beckett gives you a trickle. The sentences are stripped bare—subjects and articles drop away. Both are stream of consciousness. The technique is flexible—it can be lush or spare, fast or slow.
Writing Activity
Pick a Master, Write a Response
- Choose one of the passages above—whichever one speaks to you most.
- Read it aloud, slowly.
- Now write your own stream-of-consciousness passage inspired by it. You’re not copying the writer’s style exactly—you’re using their approach as a starting point.
- Write for 15 minutes.
For Teachers & Parents
The Morrison passage describes the Middle Passage and benefits from brief historical context before reading. The Joyce passage builds to an erotic conclusion—the excerpt here is the closing sentences, which are lyrical rather than explicit.
For younger students (8–10), the Woolf and Eliot passages are the most accessible. For older tweens and teens, the Morrison and Beckett passages offer more challenging material.
Reading aloud is important for this module. Stream of consciousness has a sound—a rhythm and flow that students will hear before they fully understand the technique intellectually.