Hemingway’s use of the ‘Stream of Consciousness’ technique in his major novels
Hemingway is an
experimenter in prose style. He had lived in Paris , and had
contacts with Joyce, Gertrude Stein, who had been deeply influenced by
Bergson’s concept of time and reality. Joyce and Gertrude Stein had known also
William James, the originator of phrase, ‘The Stream of Consciousness.’
Hemingway knew that Bergson had denounced mechanical or clock time which does
not help in our comprehending reality. He has delineated the stream of
consciousness of some of his characters in For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man
and the Sea and The Snows of Kilimanjaro.
He refers to The Fourth and the Fifth
Dimension achieved through prose, in Greek Hills of Africa . This remark has been
interpreted by various critics in different manners. Carpenter in Hemingway’s
Fifth Dimension’ observes: “The fourth dimension clearly has something to do
with the concept of time and with fictional techniques of describing it.” Harry
Levin has pointed out that ‘Hemingway’s style is lacking in the complexity of
structure that normally describes the third dimension but that it offers a
series of images (much like the moving picture) to convey the impression, of
time, sense and immediacy.’ Joseph Warren Beach has suggested that the fourth
dimension is related to an ‘aesthetic factor’ achieved by the hero’s recurrent
participation in the moral order of world.
And Malcolm Cowley has also related
the fourth dimension of time to ‘the almost continual performance of rites and
ceremonies’ suggesting the recurrent pattern of human experience, but has also
called the fifth dimension a mystical meaningless figure of speech. Thus,
Hemingway’s fourth dimension has been interpreted in different ways. It has
something to do with psychological time of Henri Bergson. Gertrude Stein,
another exponent of the inner time, was friendly with Hemingway. Even if the
fourth dimension is treated ‘the aesthetic factor’ or the hero’s participation
in the moral order of the world, it cannot be separated from the concept of the
inner time. Carpenter holds the view that the fifth dimension connotes the
psychological time. Tracing the origin of the phrase ‘the fifth dimension’ he
points out:
“Actually the
specific phrase ‘the fifth dimension’ was used in 1931 by P.D. Ouspensky, who
defined it to mean the ‘perpetual now.’ Ouspensky, a mystic, was an admirer of
Bergson and of William James. Bergson (also an admirer of James had also
emphasized that difference between psychological time and physical time). And
both these ideas go back go William Jame’s ‘philosophy of radical empiricism’
(that is of immediate or pure experience), which Gertrude Stein (a former pupil
of James) had adopted for literary purpose.”
Hemingway also seems to be
preoccupied with this question of inner time. “His literary ideal has been that
of immediate empiricism. And his ‘fifth dimensional prose’ has attempted to
communicate the immediate experience of perpetual now.” Ouspensky has given the
characteristics of the ‘fifth dimension’ and ‘perpetual now’ in his work, A New
Model of Universe, published in 1931. The ‘fifth dimension’ forms a surface in
relation to the line of time……”Though we are not aware of it, sensations of
existence of other time continually enter our consciousness. The ‘fifth
dimension’ is movement in the circle, repetition, recurrence, “Ouskpensky has
elaborated his views about the ‘perpetual now’ drawing inspiration from Jame’s
moment of consciousness and Bergson’s conception of Elan Vital, It is not
certain that Hemingway had read Ouspensky, the Russian philosopher.
Henry Bergson
expounded his conception of time and reality. Reality cannot be grasped with
intellect and cannot be analysed by reason. It is ‘immediate experience’ and is
in a state of ‘flux’. Analysis and description have distorted the feeling. It
is real duration, ‘the time perceived indivisible.’ The present penalties into
the past and merges with the future. It is difficult to pinpoint that it is the
present. There can be no instant anterior to it. The question of the present
instant is mere abstraction. “Duration is the continuous progress of the past
which gnaws into the future and which revels as it advances.” This duration or
the psychological time is opposed to the mechanical time and is unbreakable.
This inner duration or reality can be comprehended through intuition. In the
intuitive experience the subject and the object become one. It is the
perception of the mind through intuition. Bergson has enunciated his theory of
personality. It is dynamic and in a state of flux. A man’s experience is being
enriched every moment and the human personality is always evolving and growing.
Hemingway’s characters are engrossed in the present, ‘the perpetual now’.
Hemingway introduced repetition, recurrence in the structure of his fiction and
depicted inner time of his characters in some of his novels.
Comments
Post a Comment