Reading Stream of Consciousness

The idea

A stream-of-consciousness passage follows a mind, so read it in four steps. First, find whose consciousness it is: Woolf moves between Clarissa and Septimus, Joyce between Bloom, Stephen and Molly. Second, track the associations: thoughts jump by memory and sensation rather than logic, so ask what triggered each shift, a sound, a sight, a word. Third, separate present from past, because a single sentence can move from a London street to a summer years ago. Fourth, notice what the character avoids or returns to, which reveals hidden feeling. Then answer by naming the character, the trigger and the feeling, and how the technique lets the reader inside the mind rather than describing it from outside.