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Stream of Consciousness
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch incorporates several stylistic elements to achieve its darkly psychological tone and mood. For one, the story is told from a first-person retrospective point of view. Theodore Decker, the protagonist, writes the story as an adult, reflecting on the most tortured and hopeless time of his life and the role of The Goldfinch in his subsequent journey. With the retrospective style, Tartt employs a significant amount of foreshadowing, while still keeping the plot engaging enough to surprise the reader with certain events. This style also allows Theo to reflect on his life with a levelheadedness that he certainly lacked as both a teenager and a young adult.
Tartt is also well known for her lush writing style, which uses labyrinthine sentences, metaphorical descriptions, and an intense attention to detail. Each of these stylistic components fashions the dark and dreamlike mood of the story. Tartt’s rich and long-winded sentences create detailed pictures in the reader’s mind, allowing them to move physically with Theo through each city and scene.
The novel also incorporates stream of consciousness to demonstrate Theo’s often anxious state of mind. By allowing the reader to see inside Theo’s jumbled and unreliable mind, they can better understand the intentions behind Theo’s actions. Sometimes, though, stream of consciousness is used to illustrate how Theo lacks understanding of even his own efforts and thoughts. Through this stylistic technique, Tartt brilliantly demonstrates the psychological effects that trauma can have on a young boy’s life and mind.
