Who is speaking in this section? How old is he? How would you describe his personality?
What do we discover about Proust's view of memory in the famous scene with the madeline (p.61) in this section of Combray?
Examine and interpret two scenes of reading in this section. What do they tell us about the narrator. What do they tells us about stories and reading?
Magic lantern (pp.10 ff)
The mother's kiss (pp. 15ff, 46 ff)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The narrator seems to be boy of middle/upper middle class status who is obsessed with the love his mother gives him. He seems extremely introspective in the sense that he relates the few happenings of the story back to his own feelings and motivations. Perhaps we will findo ut later in the book that he is troubled or emotionally disturbed.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThe importance of the mother's kiss for the little boy and the effect the waiting for it and then the aftermath of the act being swiftly pushed to past experience sort of represents the boy's longing for more than Combray offers. The father's idea that he shouldn't even have a kiss on the cheek good night to the idea of him requesting a second kiss from his mother sort of shows his resistant acceptance of a status quo created not just in his home but perhaps even Combray.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree that he is troubled or emotionally disturbed more than he is really just a child trying to understand the adults he's constantly in contact with and to go a bit further (maybe I'm reaching) perhaps this is the adult narrator's realization of how little he understood while he experienced his family and now seemingly reconciles his new adult knowledge with that of his childhood self.
Aubria Ralph