Stream of Consciousness
• Stream of Consciousness is a literary
technique which was pioneered by Dorthy
Richardson, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce.
Stream of consciousness is characterized by a
flow of thoughts and images, which may not
always appear to have a coherent structure or
cohesion.
• The plot line may weave in and out of time
and place, carrying the reader through the life
span of a character or further along a timeline
to incorporate the lives of characters from
other time periods.
• Writers who create stream-of-consciousness
works of literature focus on the emotional and
psychological processes that are taking place
in the minds of one or more characters.
• Important character traits are revealed
through an exploration of what is going on in
the mind.
Elements included in Magical Realism
• Irony Regarding Author’s Perspective—The writer
must have ironic distance from the magical world view
for the realism not to be compromised.
• Unusual sequence of events and POV – fragmented
time sequences, flashbacks, stream of consciousness,
frequently switching point of view
• The Supernatural and Natural—In magical realism,
the supernatural is not displayed as questionable.
• Realistic setting and conflict (often points out or
protests social or political concerns)
• Elements patterned on fairytales, tall tales,
mythology, the mystic/spiritual, folklore, and a bond
with the traditions or faith of a community. Events
presented as absolutely real and often go
unquestioned but have dreamlike or fairy-tale like
Well-known magical realist works
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Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate
Ben Okri, The Famished Road
Toni Morrison, Beloved
WP Kinsella, Shoeless Joe (made into the film, Field of
Dreams)
• Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children
• These novels violate, in various ways, standard novelistic
expectations by drastic experiments with subject matter, form,
style, temporal sequence, and fusions of the everyday, the
fantastic, the mythical, and the nightmarish, in renderings that
blur traditional distinctions between what is serious or trivial,
horrible or ludicrous, tragic or comic.
Problems with the term - Magical
Realism
• Some claim that it is a postcolonial
hangover, a category used by "whites" to
marginalize the fiction of the "other."
• Others claim that it is a passé literary
trend, or just a way to cash in on the Latin
American "boom."
• Still others feel the term is simply too
limiting, and acts to remove the fiction in
question from the world of serious
literature.
Application to Beloved
• Supernatural – a ghost haunts the house quite literally but
also metaphorically. The ghost materializes into a girl (this is
questionable but there are subtle hints)
• Realistic Setting: Set in 1873 just after the American Civil
War (1861–1865), it is based on the true story of the AfricanAmerican slave, Margaret Garner, who escaped slavery in
1856 in Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio
• Experimental structure: non-linear, flashbacks,
fragmentation in stories, multiple POV switching frequently,
stream of consciousness
• Incorporation of African folklore and beliefs about death
What we need to look for…
• How does Morrison’s techniques
(elements of magical realism) affect our
interpretation and experience of this story?
• How does magical realism and the
structure of the story reinforce the themes
and meaning of the work as a whole?
Socratic Seminar
Opening Questions:
Why do you think the book is titled Beloved rather than “Sethe”
or “The Ghost” or some such? What features of the book does
the title emphasize?
Why do you think Morrison employs so many Biblical allusions
throughout her novel?
How does the novel enlighten our knowledge about slavery and
its enduring impact on the United States?
Core Questions
• What are some notable feature of Toni Morrison’s style? What
are some of the features of her manner of storytelling?
• Given the ironic nature of the name “Sweet Home,” why does
it play such an evocative role in the novel?
• What beliefs about the nature of memory does Sethe convey to
her daughter? Do you think these may relate to Morrison’s
view about the nature and role of art? How and why?
• What symbolic circumstances attend Beloved’s return?
Core Questions
• Is Beloved’s return meant to be read as a literal and physical
return? Why or why not?
• What role does the “chokecherry tree” on Sethe’s back play?
• Does the murder have the narrative impact it should have or is
it anti-climatic? What effect did it have on you?
• What do you think happens at the novel’s end—is Sethe
healed? Do she and Paul D. make a life together? Are they
reunited with their community? Or does she die?
• If the preceding issues are unresolved, why do you think this is
so?
Closing Questions
• What is the tone of the novel? How would you describe
its language? What purpose does the language serve?
• Was this a story “to pass on,” and if not, why has it been
passed on? Or is the statement a form of paradox? Why
or why not?
• By classical definition, a tragedy effects purgation and
cleansing by the evocation of pity and terror. Is this work
intended as a tragedy? A comedy of redemption? Or
some mixture of both? Explain.
• What is added to this novel by its organization through
metaphor and allegory?