Reading Novels Like A Professor: Chapter 13 – Drowning in the Stream of Consciousne...

Reading Novels Like A Professor: Chapter 13 – Drowning in the Stream of Consciousne...: If your novel is written in this style, analyze it using the ideas presented by Foster in this passage. Comment on your personal response to...
Stream Of consciousness is a very powerful attribute when it comes to a novel. This style of writing where the narrator can just simply delve into anyone’s mind benefits the reader tremendously. This allows the readers to not only understand the thoughts and feelings of the main protagonist, but the thoughts and feelings of other supporting characters ad well. Thomas Foster states in his book, How to Read Novels like a Professor that, “We use the term very loosely, to describe the effects produced by a number of techniques, and more generally to describe a certain type of fiction that seeks to reproduce consciousness in all its complexity and with a minimum of narrative mediation. And while they differ considerably from one another, they have this in common: the loss of a narrative center outside character” (162). In the novel, Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky uses the stream of consciousness in order to allow the reader to understand the true motives of each character. Throughout the novel several of the characters commit awful deeds. Without the narrator diving into the minds of these characters, these actions would be very unusual and almost improbable. The author even narrates certain dreams that two of the major characters have throughout the novel. This technique is very important to the plot line of the story. I personally find this style of writing very intriguing and bright. To me it shows that the author can not only give a character certain actions to do, but can also give the character certain motives and reasons for those actions. It allows the author to be more creative and more surprising. Personally, I am all for a more interesting and surprising story.
-Conner Furr