The Innovative Narrative Techniques in Virginia Woolf's Fiction: A Study of Stream of Consciousness, Interior Monologue, and Shifting Perspectives

Humanities

The narrative techniques employed in a novel reveals the vision of a novelist. Traditional way of writing novels was discarded by Virginia Woolf because she is a kind of writer who thinks that human life is ever changing. Novelists like Arnold Bennett, H.G.Wells and John Galsworthy adopted conventional mode of writing and Virginia Woolf found them unappealing because they lacked real perspectives of human life. According to Woolf real life is full of challenges that never remain static. It can be one of the reasons that Virginia Woolf adopted techniques like stream of consciousness in most of her novels. She believed that smooth narration cannot represent reality of life because life is full of ups and downs. The time schemes, voices and characters that she represents in her novels is nonlinear and it provides a glimpse of realism. Inner reality and an eternal flux of human psychology are reflected through her characters. In the beginning of twentieth century Virginia Woolf followed her own instincts and joined novelists like James Joyce. It has already been stated in chapter one of the present research work that James Joyce was a modern writer who experimented with modern techniques of writing novels. Prime concern of novelists like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf was to establish a pattern out of chaotic flow of consciousness. Critics and scholar may argue that in the work of fiction much emphasis on consciousness of characters can divert the plot and a balance between plot and setting can further be distorted. We will be surprised to know that in the novels of Virginia Woolf and James Joyce there is a perfect balance between the plot and the setting. The experiment with new methods of writing was result oriented and characters were capable of expressing their mind and intuitions.

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