Part II: Select a question and respond on line:
What is the significance in Part I, Combray, of dreams, the magic lantern, the stories read to the narrator as a child? How does this connect with Carroll's Alice in Wonderland?
Why does the image of the steeple dominate Part II? How does it differ in subject, tone, language from Part I?
What is the significance of the two directions to take a walk around Combray: Meseglise Way (Swann's Way) and Guermantes Way (pp.188-89). What do these ways represent?
Proust often presents us with scenes of moral complexity. What do you make of the scene of Uncle Adolphe and the pink lady, and the family's response to the narrator's recounting of this meeting (pp.99 ff)? Or the narrator's espying Mlle Vinteuil and her companion (pp.206-208 and pp.224 ff)?
Why does Proust often compare characters to figures in painting. For example, why does Swann allude to the kitchen maid as Giotto's "Charity" (pp. 110-113). And what does this allusion say about Swann and Francoise, the savvy servant?
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Meseglise Way and Guermantes Way are the two paths that surround Combray that the narrator would take to visit his aunt Leonie. The narrator fondly remembers Meseglise Way as this was the common path they would take, and thus, the path of his childhood. He recalls the imagery and scenery as "comprising the finest view of a plain" (189) as his father explained it, whereas Guermantes Way is mentioned as having "typical" river scenery. The two are quite separate in his mind, as one was a reality and the other the road less traveled. His admiration for the Meseglise Way is exemplary of a fond childhood memory, just as the desire for his mother's goodnight kiss would allow him to rest at night. We know the narrator is particular in his mannerisms and does not necessarily approve of change. For him, Meseglise Way was the norm and set the precedent for which he judges everything else he encounters, "It is because I believed in things and in people while I walked along those paths that the things and the people they made known to me are the only ones that I still take seriously and that still bring me joy" (260). It has become the standard for comparison in his life, as he illustrates to the reader that our everyday experiences are rooted in a childhood experience or memory.
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