Question

Which lines from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" provide an example of stream of consciousness?
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

Answer 1

The clearest example in your excerpt is the passage where the speaker moves quickly from abstract reassurance to anxious, associative thoughts. For example:

- "And indeed there will be time / To wonder, 'Do I dare?' and, 'Do I dare?'"
- "Time to turn back and descend the stair, / With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —"

These lines show interior monologue: rhetorical questions, repetition, abrupt shifts from general reflection to a petty personal image (the bald spot). The quick, associative movement of thought (and the repeated, anxious questioning) are hallmarks of stream of consciousness. You can also include the immediately following lines — "And indeed there will be time / For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, / Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;" — which continue the free-flowing, sensory-associative mode.