His insomnia was heavily highlighted throughout part one. I view the narrator as a person with severe anxiety. His thoughts are constantly jumping from one to another. His anxiety comes to light mostly at the thought of his mom not being able to give him a goodnight kiss. I wonder if his anxiety is brought from childhood trauma because his dreams always escape to his childhood. The narrator expressed his “childish terror” (4) with the memory of his great uncle pulling him by his curls. He also seems afraid of his father. This is shown when the father does not allow his mother to give him a kiss goodnight. In the scene where the narrator waits for his mom above the staircase to say goodnight, his mother seems afraid of what his father might say to their son as she tells him in a panic to go back to his room. His mom seems to be aware of his fathers resentment to his son’s actions.
His childhood experiences seem to be the cause of what his personality is today. His mind always wanders back to his childhood. His father’s negative opinions of his son’s night time ritual could have impacted the narrator’s pressure to grow up and cause an unhealthy attachment to his mother. His mother is the only one who accepts his needs.This makes me question how much does childhood trauma and the pressure of maturity affect an individual?
Overall, “Combray” part one was a confusing read for me. I was left with so many unanswered questions. I wish the author had given us more insight into the narrator’s past before these events.
Reading Proust’s stories from Swann’s Way gave me a lot of feelings. I’m not sure that I understood either story completely – or that I ever could – but I certainly felt connected to them on a deeper level than I would have expected. Of the two stories, I would like to discuss aspects of “Overture” […]
This was my first time reading any of Proust’s works and I started reading feeling a little uncertain about how much I would understand and enjoy the reading. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the book flowed and … Continue reading →
Posted in Blogs, Proust | Tagged with dream vs reality, memory, time
Reading any books digitally always feels like a different unexplainable experience than having the physical copy in front of you. Proust’s “Combray” was the same too, I feel like perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I was able to have a physical copy of the book. However, I did still enjoy the story, […]
Swann’s Way was a tough book, and I found it quite challenging to grasp the true meaning of what I was reading. In my opinion, it had an incredibly nonsensical storyline while somehow remaining mysterious and relatively engaging. Proust was eloquent in his writing, often using multiple adjectives to describe one thing or event. As …
Posted in Blogs, Proust | Tagged with Mother's Kiss
I dived into Proust’s Combray completely unaware of what to expect. The first thing that caught my attention was the language. It was very descriptive, thus allowing me to envision every room and meal as the narrator experienced it. Secondly, I noticed the stream of consciousness that the narrator seemed to be traveling along while narrating. What started in a room with an insight into the intricacies of sleep and wakefulness turned into a formative childhood memory. This form of writing intrigued me immensely because of how naturally it flowed. I almost did not notice the transition until I read about the narrator’s next idea!
I must confess that I did get a little bit confused when the narrator switched to talking about his childhood experience from his ideologies as an adult. However, once I picked up on the difference I was able to enjoy the innocence with which the child craved to be with his mother. As seen in the scene below, Proust’s description of the raw emotion of longing from a child’s perspective makes the scene more impactful and its sentiment that much deeper.
“But I implored her again: ‘Come say goodnight to me,’ terrified as I saw the light from my father’s candle already creeping up the wall, but also making use of his approach as a means of blackmail, in the hope that my mother, not wishing to find me here, as find me he must if she continued to refuse me, would give in and say: ‘Go back to your room. I will come.'”
I found this particularly significant because of how palpable and tangible the emotions were in this extract.
Additionally, the lecture touched upon many points that I did not consider while reading but added to the importance of the text upon considering them. One of these points is regarding the multiple perspectives we experience in the chapter, but only through the narrator’s eyes. We learn about M. Swann, the narrator’s great-aunt and grandmother, and how they all share a great number of opinions on varying societal issues. But once again, all of these thoughts are shrouded by the narrator’s perspective which as a child was solely focused on gaining his mother’s attention. Proust therefore sheds light on an important question worth considering: how do we perceive each character’s perspective differently when the narration is only through one person’s point of view?
Hence, as stated in the lecture, we only get to see a portion of what happened because of the gap which exists in relaying information. This drives us to make assumptions to fill in the spaces and to keep reading to see if what we thought was true. I feel like this text has prepared me for the other literature in this course because of its unique writing style and the type of reading it demands.
I look forward to reading more and discussing this text in class with everyone!
I dived into Proust’s Combray completely unaware of what to expect. The first thing that caught my attention was the language. It was very descriptive, thus allowing me to envision every room and meal as the narrator experienced it. Secondly, I noticed the stream of consciousness that the narrator seemed to be traveling along while narrating. What started in a room with an insight into the intricacies of sleep and wakefulness turned into a formative childhood memory. This form of writing intrigued me immensely because of how naturally it flowed. I almost did not notice the transition until I read about the narrator’s next idea!
I must confess that I did get a little bit confused when the narrator switched to talking about his childhood experience from his ideologies as an adult. However, once I picked up on the difference I was able to enjoy the innocence with which the child craved to be with his mother. As seen in the scene below, Proust’s description of the raw emotion of longing from a child’s perspective makes the scene more impactful and its sentiment that much deeper.
“But I implored her again: ‘Come say goodnight to me,’ terrified as I saw the light from my father’s candle already creeping up the wall, but also making use of his approach as a means of blackmail, in the hope that my mother, not wishing to find me here, as find me he must if she continued to refuse me, would give in and say: ‘Go back to your room. I will come.'”
I found this particularly significant because of how palpable and tangible the emotions were in this extract.
Additionally, the lecture touched upon many points that I did not consider while reading but added to the importance of the text upon considering them. One of these points is regarding the multiple perspectives we experience in the chapter, but only through the narrator’s eyes. We learn about M. Swann, the narrator’s great-aunt and grandmother, and how they all share a great number of opinions on varying societal issues. But once again, all of these thoughts are shrouded by the narrator’s perspective which as a child was solely focused on gaining his mother’s attention. Proust therefore sheds light on an important question worth considering: how do we perceive each character’s perspective differently when the narration is only through one person’s point of view?
Hence, as stated in the lecture, we only get to see a portion of what happened because of the gap which exists in relaying information. This drives us to make assumptions to fill in the spaces and to keep reading to see if what we thought was true. I feel like this text has prepared me for the other literature in this course because of its unique writing style and the type of reading it demands.
I look forward to reading more and discussing this text in class with everyone!
As I initially began reading the text, I thought the main theme would be around the inability to sleep, and how the mind can race at night much to one’s dismay. Ideas of lucid dreaming or sleep paralysis came into my mind. Early on, Proust mentions the thought of falling asleep waking him up, this […]
From the first paragraph of Proust’s Combray, the author’s intrinsic, attentive, and stunning control over language is evident. The manner in which he captures the disorientation of hovering listlessly in the place between sleep and awake–that long moment of disequilibrium as we return to ourselves following a dream (“it seemed to me that I myself […]
blog#2 – Combray and Childhood Guilt — While reading Proust’s Combray, I automatically and unconsciously tried to categorize it in my brain with themes of other texts and books I’ve read in the past. The result was somewhere between ‘intimacy-deprived only child soliloquy‘ and ‘anxiety fueled mommy issues‘. Though Combray left with me with more […]
Posted in Blogs, Proust | Tagged with babyhood, childhood guilt, french, lost in translation, mother
