"Who is speaking" is one of the most important questions to consider when reading twentieth-century literature. Who is speaking in the first part of Proust's "Combray" (to about p. 130). Find the clues to narration and support your position with quotes from the text.
Write about a paragraph or two expressing your views. Check the website again to see what other students say, and then join in the conversation again, if you wish.
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The Speculative "I" of "Swann's Way"
ReplyDeleteIndeed, there could be great speculations as far as the unmasking of the narrator, or the "I" of Marcel Proust's "Swann's Way" is concerned. The narrator is very ambiguous for there are some clues in the text that leads both toward and away from Proust.
In the very first passage of the very first chapter of the first part titled "Combray," the narration takes quite an ingenuous turn. There is a detailed description of one of the most common activity every human being does- going to bed. The author lets the pure stream of consciousness pour in: "Sometimes, my candle scarcely out, my eyes would close so quickly that I did not have time to say to myself: 'I'm falling asleep. And, half an hour later, the thought that it was time to try to try to sleep would wake me" (3) Who else but the person who is experiencing all this can talk in such a detail about all the mini rituals that take place right before sleep takes over. This part doesn't even seem like a beginning of a fictional work but rather like a diary. There is a subliminal conversation going on between the authorand himself.
On the other hand, later on the narrator explicitly distances himself from the main protagonist of the story. It seems that "as after metempsychosis do the thoughts of an earlier existance, the subject of the book detached itself from me..." (3). Here, the narrator steps aside and starts merely observing the main character. Yet, there is still strong relation between Proust and the "I" of the story. Maybe the "I" of the story is either Proust's alter ego or maybe even Proust in his past life.
It is a well known fact that Marcel Prous fed deep respect toward his mother and, meanwhile, was very close to her. Interestingly enough, the fictional mother of the protagonist also has a very affectionate relationship with his mother. One of the tokens of this relationship is the ritual of a goodnight kiss: "My sole consolation, when I went upstairs for the night, was when Mama would come and kiss me once I was in bed" (13). He writes "Mama: with a capital letter. Therefore, for him this very word doesn't simply signify a parent in general, but something very special and irreplaceable, in a way. He also finds comfort in it. Who else but a real son could find such strength to express all those intimate, deep feelings on a piece of paper. Maybe it is Proust describing his relationship with the woman who gave him life after all.
It is very likely that "Swann's Way" is Proust's autobiography, in a way. Maybe it is not exactly his life story but the life story of his former self or his alter ego
Who is speaking? And who is not speaking? These are questions that must be addressed when entering the various world of 20th century literature. On closer observation it must seem that the solid identity, the oneness of say a Victorian narrator, has been shattered and replaced with a multiplicity of narrators . . . The narrator is at once a grown-up going to sleep, becoming a part of what he reads, existing between the world of his book, the agony of childhood, and the pull of past associations. He exists in many forms and in many time. There is as we discussed in class a kaleidoscope of self. I would however argue that this kaleidoscope of self could be more accurately described as one self: my argument being that the 'oneness' one sees in Victorian literature is artificial, or even impossible. In presenting the self in multiple Proust, I would say, comes closer to capturing the one as fractured, multiple, various, and extant in the past, present, and future. So we have one narrator who is malleable. We have many splinters of one personality.
ReplyDeleteJonathon
I agree with Rayadim that, at times, one feels in the early section of "Combray" that one is reading a diary, but "when the self speaks to the self," as Woolf says, who is speaking? "For a long time..." the narrator says as he, older narrator, looks back upon and recaptures those early experiences. Past and present combined.Two dfferent times as the self evolves. Myself then. Myself now.
ReplyDeleteI like what Jonathan says about narrator becoming a part of what he reads, existing between the world and his book, and re-experiencing the agonies of childhood. This state of shifting consciousness between waking and sleeping when the lights of reason go down. But, Jonathan argues for the unified personality of the narrator despite the fragments, the different aspects of self at different times. When and why do we pull all the parts together in life and writing. Do they all "fit"?
P.Laurence