Between the Whittlings: Free Indirect Discourse & Stream of consciousness

Is there a difference?

Hello again on a Saturday! (It’s Saturday somewhere, right? I’m sure of it.)

I’m working on a short story draft that’s been accepted for publication (yay). It’s a fantasy romance and there are two distinct ‘worlds’ the characters inhabit. So I’m considering using different narrative techniques for each world. That’s kinda sorta the plan, anyway.

In my own teaching, we often delve into the different POVs and types of narrators, including 1st/2nd/3rd-person narrators. But we don’t always end up going beyond that. I’m exploring different narrative styles to highlight the mental states of two (same same but) different characters.

I’ve realised that I tend to use free indirect discourse quite instinctively and it could work for one of the ‘worlds’ I’m depicting. Am wondering if stream of consciousness would work for the other one.

The only thing is I’ve never consciously written a stream of consciousness piece before either so I wanna spend some time distinguishing between the two before I dive into rewriting my draft later/tomorrow. (It’s due on Tuesday siudhfdsdaidfhsiuafd).

So this is what I’m gonna do:

1. Explain what free indirect discourse is, with examples

2. Explain what stream of consciousness is, with examples

3. Try and figure out the differences

Free Indirect Discourse (FID)

I’m gonna start with this since it’s the one I’m more familiar with. FID is kinda tricky to detect at first but after a while, it’s pretty fun. I learnt more about the term in this Nerdwriter video about Jane Austen’s use of the technique (Thanks, Simon, for sharing the vid!).

FID is a blend between direct discourse and indirect discourse. It’s essentially when the narrator momentarily inhabits the mental space of the character or, if you’re looking at it the other way around, when the character’s voice seeps into the narration. This also doesn’t have to do with whether the narration is done in first, second or third person. Let me show you.

1. Direct discourse: When the narrator explicitly quotes what the character is thinking/saying.

   1. Third-person narrator: Jonathan drank the coffee and said, “Urgh, this black liquid tastes disgusting.”

   2. First-person narrator: I drank the coffee and said, “Urgh, this black liquid tastes disgusting.”

2. Indirect discourse: When the narrator reports what the character is thinking/saying without saying it directly.

   1. Third-person narrator: Jonathan drank the coffee and thought the black liquid was the most disgusting thing he had ever tasted.

   2. First-person narrator: I drank the coffee and thought the black liquid was the most disgusting thing I had ever tasted.

3. Free indirect discourse: When the narrator blends what the character is thinking/saying into the narration, without the use of quotes.

   1. Third-person narrator: Jonathan drank the coffee. Urgh, it was disgusting. How could anyone drink this?

   2. First-person narrator: I drank the coffee. Urgh. It was disgusting. How could anyone drink this?

The benefits of FID is that you can lowkey establish the main character’s voice. I tend to lean on it because I find that it breaks up the monotony of the narration if I were to only use indirect discourse. So FID helps with achieving a certain sense of fluidity in the narrative, which I do wanna maintain.

Let’s check out some examples of this in different texts:

1. Atonement by Ian McEwan (Part 2)

   1. “There were horrors enough, but it was the unexpected detail that threw him and afterward would not let him go. When they reached the level crossing, after a three-mile walk along a narrow road, he saw the path he was looking for meandering off to the right, then dipping and rising toward a copse that covered a low hill to the northwest. They stopped so that he could consult the map. But it wasn’t where he thought it should be. It wasn’t in his pocket, or tucked into his belt. Had he dropped it, or put it down at the last stop?”

2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Chapter 27)

   1. “Absence had increased her desire of seeing Charlotte again, and weakened her disgust of Mr. Collins. There was novelty in the scheme, and as, with such a mother and such uncompaniable sisters, home could not be faultless, a little change was not unwelcome for its own sake. The journey would moreover give her a peep at Jane; and, in short, as the time drew near, she would have been very sorry for any delay.”

In the Atonement example, the FID seems to only come in the last line where Robbie’s wondering if he dropped his map. In the P&P example, Lizzie’s voice takes over Austen’s narrative voice quite quickly, from the bit where she’s considering the ‘novelty in the scheme,’ how she’s got ‘such a mother and such uncompaniable sisters’ and how she would get ‘a peep at Jane.’ Through the use of FID, you see how the narrative voice slips back, ever so slightly, to let the main character take the stage and, in doing so, the writer pulls the reader closer to stand next to the main character, to allow us to LOOK THROUGH Robbie’s lens or Lizzie’s lens. And yet, the narrator never ever goes away. So there is still a distance between the reader and the main character. A distance which the narrator affords us so that we can LOOK AT the main characters. It’s a more holistic view, I guess. Kinda like a tour guide who brings you around a new place and you can pop into local shops to get a sense of the culture but eventually, you get back on the bus and the guide brings you where they want you to go. (I don’t know if this tour guide analogy is going to age well but sure.)

Stream of Consciousness (SoC)

It’s been an hour since I wrote the previous part. Let me take you through what’s just happened.

So I’d always heard that Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf is written in SoC. I check it out and I’m seeing the stream, man. I’m seeing how the narrator just dumps you into the stream and you’re kinda knee-deep in this literary river of words, slipping and sliding around, making meaning out of what’s being said.

And I’m like, yeah! Yeah! This is SoC! I shall write about it in my post. Wonderful. And then! I do a bit more googling and I read, in several analyses, that Mrs Dalloway is written in FID.

BRO, WHAT. But it’s clearly different?Also, others insist it's stream of consciousness.

So now, I’m in too deep to go back because I’ve written half this post and I also really need to understand the difference between the two. I’m looking at books I already know are famously written in SoC - Age of Iron, As I Lay Dying, The Catcher and the Rye! And I see the SoC but I also see the FID.

So then I’m confused.

Are they the same thing? Is one merely the subset of another?

I think I’ve finally arrived at some kind of answer but let’s first look at what SoC is, with examples. (Yes, I’m including the Dalloway eg.)

Stream of consciousness: When the narrator presents the continuous flow of thoughts/feelings of a character’s mind.

1. Age of Iron by J. M. Coetzee (Section 1)

   1. “Yesterday, at the end of this alley, I came upon a house of carton boxes and plastic sheeting and a man curled up inside, a man I recognized from the streets: tall, thin, with a weathered skin and long, carious fangs, wearing a baggy grey suit and a hat with a sagging brim. He had the hat on now, sleeping with the brim folded under his ear. A derelict, one of the derelicts who hang around the parking lots on Mill Street, cadging money from shoppers, drinking under the overpass, eating out of refuse cans. One of the homeless for whom August, month of rains, is the worst month. Asleep in his box, his legs stretched out like a marionette’s, his jaw agape. An unsavory smell about him: urine, sweet wine, moldy clothing, and something else too. Unclean.”

2. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (3rd-person - opening paragraphs)

   1. “Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.

      For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumplemayer’s men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning - fresh as if issued to children on a beach.

      What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window that something awful was about to happen; looking at the flowers, at the trees with the smoke winding off them and the rooks rising, falling; standing and looking until Peter Walsh said, “Musing among the vegetables?”- was that it? - “I prefer men to cauliflowers” - was that it?

Okay, is there evidence of FID used in these examples? Yes. You see it in both the Age of Iron and Mrs Dalloway examples.

But then, what distinguishes SoC from FID?

I’m concluding that purpose is key.

The use of SoC clearly thrusts the reader entirely into the character’s state of mind: In both examples, the lines are sprawling, like a bus pulling out of a bus-stop and you’re running after this bus but the driver hasn’t seen you yet so you’re just running, running, running after it. SoC is, therefore, clearly meant for us to explore the interiority of the characters’ minds a bit more deeply.

Take a look at the Mrs Dalloway example again. The first line is clearly indirect discourse. The second paragraph starts with a bit of FID before launching into “what a morning - as if issued to children on the beach.” From here, we are briefly looking through Mrs Dalloway’s lens, like we did with Lizzie earlier. Here, we are given a seat inside her head. It is the same with the Age of Iron example. There’s no space for reflection or exposition of any kind, as there would be if a narrator were in charge.

And THAT’s the other difference. The tour guide is different! (Oh hell yes, the analogy aged wonderfully.) We are inside their heads for longer than we would be if only FID were used. So, the tour guide is not the narrator, anymore. The tour guide is the main character. The narrator is essentially the dude who’s picking you up at the airport and driving you to meet the tour guide and they just put you in a little seat in the rollercoaster of the main character’s mind, make sure you’ve got your seat belt on and it’s like bye, have fun.

Hmm, what do you think? I feel like I’m quite satisfied with this distinction for now. I’m also starting to think that you could do stream of consciousness with direct and indirect discourse. Could you?

But maybe this is best answered in a subsequent post. 🤓

Thank you for being here! See you next week 🫶🏽