Sartre described the stream of consciousness technique as one method of moving the novel from the era of Newtonian physics forward into the era of Einstein's theory of general relativity, in terms of writing style. He saw this as crucial because he felt that "narrative technique ultimately takes us back to the metaphysics of the novelist." He wanted his novelistic techniques to be compatible with his theories on the existential freedom of the individual as well as his phenomenological analyses of the unstable, shifting structures of consciousness.