How did stream-of-consciousness narration change the way novels portrayed characters?

In Modernist literature, the stream-of-consciousness technique fundamentally transformed character portrayal by shifting the focus from external, omniscient narration to the raw, internal experience of the individual.12

Rather than presenting characters through a traditional, orderly narrative lens, this technique attempts to replicate the mind’s actual functioning—capturing a continuous, often seemingly random flow of impressions, memories, and associations. By incorporating snatches of incoherent thought, ungrammatical constructions, and subliminal imagery, authors could depict the full richness and complexity of a character's consciousness.13

This approach moved fiction away from the "neatness and certainties" of classical storytelling, instead illustrating that human life is often governed by accident, chance, and the unpredictable "byroads of the mind". By presenting these thoughts as if they were unedited, writers like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner allowed characters to reveal their inner states directly, creating a more subjective and intimate connection between the reader and the character’s psyche. This shift recognized that individual identity is often fractured and complex, existing in a world where rational thought is constantly at the mercy of the irrational.1324