In our previous lesson, we saw how writers like Chekhov and Conrad began to pull at the threads of 19th-century realism. They turned their focus inward, exploring the hidden subjectivity of the self and the moral ambiguities that lie beneath the surface of civilized life. They were, in essence, pointing toward a new way of understanding character.
Today, we will walk through the door they opened. Your goal is to distinguish the modernist focus on interiority and the unreliable narrator from the established conventions of 19th-century character portrayal. We will explore two of modernism's most revolutionary tools for representing the self: the "stream of consciousness," which attempts to map the mind's inner landscape, and the "unreliable narrator," which challenges the very idea of a single, trustworthy truth.
The Orderly World of the 19th-Century Character
To appreciate the modernist revolution, we must first understand the tradition it was breaking from. The great realist novels of the 19th century—works by authors like George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, and Charles Dickens—tended to present character in a specific way. The narrator was often omniscient, a god-like voice who could reliably report events and even dip into characters' thoughts. Characters themselves were often presented as stable, coherent beings whose psychology was revealed through their actions, their social roles, and their clearly articulated speech. Their inner lives were legible and logically connected to their outward behavior.
The following video from The School of Life humorously but accurately describes this convention, using the novelist Anthony Trollope as a prime example. It highlights how the thoughts presented in such novels have a clarity that, while comforting, is quite unlike how our minds actually work.
What is the Stream of Consciousness?
This video, "What is the Stream of Consciousness?", begins by showing us what stream of consciousness is not. It uses a great example to illustrate the tidy, logical "thinking" of characters in 19th-century fiction.
Please watch the section from the introduction of literature that describes Anthony Trollope's method of showing a character's thoughts. Notice the assertion that "no human who has ever existed actually thinks or feels remotely like this."
This "implausible clarity" was precisely what modernist writers sought to dismantle. They believed that new philosophies and the shocks of the modern world had revealed the self to be something far more chaotic, fragmented, and private.
The Turn Inward: Mapping the Stream of Consciousness
The core modernist belief that drove this change was a simple but profound shift in the understanding of reality itself.
What Is Modernist Literature and How Is It Different From Realism?
This article from Owlcation clearly lays out the foundational difference between the two movements.
Please read the first three paragraphs of the article, under the heading "Modernism vs. Realism." Pay close attention to the central claim that for modernists, "reality exists solely in the mind."
If reality is primarily a subjective, internal experience, then the novelist's task is no longer to paint a picture of the external world, but to render the inner world of consciousness. This led to the development of the "stream of consciousness" technique, a term you're already familiar with. It's a style of writing that attempts to capture the full spectrum of a character's mental processes—their thoughts, memories, sensory perceptions, and associations—in a continuous, often illogical flow.
James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) is the landmark text for this technique. Let's return to the video from The School of Life to see how it illustrates Joyce's groundbreaking approach.
What is the Stream of Consciousness?
The video now pivots to Joyce, using an excerpt from the famous final chapter of Ulysses to demonstrate what the stream of consciousness actually looks and feels like.
Please watch from the introduction of James Joyce to the end. You'll hear a passage representing Molly Bloom's thoughts as she lies in bed, which jump rapidly between her husband, drinks, an old acquaintance, and her own body.
As the video shows, Molly's mind doesn't follow a logical, linear path like the politician in the Trollope novel. It leaps associatively. A smell leads to a thought about a drink, which leads to a memory of a person, which leads to a physical sensation. There is no central, organizing theme—only the "primeval mulch" of consciousness.
This technique gives the reader an unprecedented sense of intimacy with a character's mind. The goal is what Virginia Woolf called a "transparent vision of the subjective character."
What Is Modernist Literature and How Is It Different From Realism?
This next section from the Owlcation article elaborates on the effect of Joyce's technique in Ulysses.
Read the section titled Ulysses and Stream of Consciousness. It explains how the novel replaces a coherent external narrative with the multi-layered flow of a character's mind.
This is the key distinction. The 19th-century realist reveals character from the outside in (through action, dialogue, social context). The modernist, using stream of consciousness, reveals character from the inside out, plunging the reader directly into the chaotic, unfiltered experience of a subjective mind.
The Deceptive 'I': The Unreliable Narrator
The other major modernist innovation in character portrayal was the weaponization of the first-person narrator. While 19th-century fiction certainly had first-person stories (like Jane Eyre), the narrator was generally presented as a sincere and trustworthy guide. Modernists, however, became fascinated with the unreliable narrator: a storyteller whose credibility is compromised by psychological instability, bias, or a deliberate intent to deceive.
This technique turns the act of reading into a form of detective work. We cannot simply accept what the narrator tells us as fact. Instead, we must read between the lines, paying attention to contradictions, exaggerations, and obsessions to piece together a truer picture of the events and, more importantly, of the narrator's own mind.
The following video provides an excellent introduction to this concept, explaining what it is, why an author might use it, and how it works in practice.
"What is an Unreliable Narrator?": A Literary Guide for English Students and Teachers
This guide from the Oregon State University School of Writing, Literature and Film clearly defines the unreliable narrator and provides a wonderful case study.
First, watch the introduction, which defines the technique and contrasts it with the "God-like" omniscient narrator of classic fiction. This runs from the beginning to the beginning of the explanation of authorial intent. Then, continue watching to understand why an author uses this device and how it turns the reader into an "arm-chair therapist." This section runs from the discussion of authorial intent. Finally, watch the analysis of James Joyce's short story "Araby" from the introduction of Joyce. It shows how a young boy's narration reveals more about his own psychology (the conflict between religious idealism and budding sexuality) than he himself understands.
As the "Araby" example beautifully illustrates, the unreliable narrator creates an "ironic distance" between what the narrator says, what the author means, and what the reader understands. The story happens in that gap.
This technique was central to many modernist novels. A classic example is Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier (1915), whose narrator, John Dowell, tries to recount a tragic story of adultery and betrayal but is so confused and contradictory that the reader is forced to question everything.
What Is Modernist Literature and How Is It Different From Realism?
This final reading from the Owlcation article uses The Good Soldier to explore the philosophical implications of unreliable narration.
Please read the section titled Ford and Unreliable Narrators. It describes how the narrator's rambling style conceals as much as it reveals and forces the reader to co-create the story's meaning.
The unreliable narrator is the ultimate expression of the modernist suspicion of objective truth. If reality is subjective, then any single account of it is inherently biased and incomplete. By presenting a flawed narrator, the author hands the responsibility of interpretation over to you, the reader, trapping you in a "sea of possible interpretations."
Conclusion
In this lesson, we have drawn a clear line between the 19th-century's method of character portrayal and modernism's radical alternatives.
Key Takeaways:
- 19th-Century Convention: Character was portrayed as a stable, socially-defined entity. An omniscient and reliable narrator revealed psychology through external action and logical, articulated thought.
- Modernist Interiority: Believing reality to be subjective and internal, modernists used stream of consciousness to represent the chaotic, associative, and unfiltered flow of a character's mind, giving the reader a direct, transparent view of their inner world.
- Modernist Unreliability: Modernists employed the unreliable narrator to undermine the notion of a single, objective truth. This technique forces the reader to become an active interpreter of the narrator's psychology and biases, co-creating the story's meaning.
Both techniques served the same goal: to move away from depicting characters as coherent actors in a shared, objective reality, and instead to portray the self as a fragmented, private, and often mysterious consciousness navigating its own subjective universe.
In our next lesson, we will see how this new focus on the inner world also demanded a new kind of plot. We'll examine how the confident, linear narratives of the 19th century gave way to the fragmented structures and 'mythic methods' of modernism.