Resumo de Stream-of-consciousness And Dream States In Proust's "swann's Way: Remembrance Of Things Past"

Marcel Proust's novel Swann's Way is a wonderful novel of French society in the age known as La Belle Epoch. However, Swann's Way respresents so much more; it is a soft remembrance of a time lost, a sentimental journey thrugh the memory of the mind. Proust relates this story, not in a linear way, but in a slipping back and forth, from times past to present, through the remembrances of childhood. There is no traditional structure with a conflict or resolution, but a steady flow of workings of the mind, a stream-of-consciousness, a sort of daydreaming. The author's awareness of dream states and of the conscious and unconsciousness selves began in childhood and is used throughout the novel. His stated aim is to draw forth from the shadows, a life felt, spiritualizing it in the present

Proust's method is not a conventional narrative but a collection of memories. His method is a complex but natural process, natural because this is the way that the mind really works. He uses emotion and sensory perception in a deliberate way - working away from the customary structure of chronological order in a novel. His method applies, in his own words, the memory of the past, the involuntary life of the unconscious. The protagonist and narrator of the story is a boy and man very much like Proust himself; some say it is an autobiography of the author.

Marcel is a very sensitive and creative child and very attached to his mother. As a young boy, he waits for his mother to kiss him goodnight and if she fails to do so, he does not sleep but agonizes over her absence for hours. His father is somewhat stern and disapproves of this attachment between mother and son. He is also sickly; he suffers from severe asthma which confines him to his room much of the time. At this time, he develops a love for books and reading. He is also very close to his great aunt, who lives with the family throughout his childhood years.

A memory comes to the adult Marcel as he is stirring his teacup with a spoon; the clinking sound of the spoon in the teacup triggers a memory of a bell that rang somewhere in his past. The bell rang when vistors came to the house. A memory of a visit to his great Aunt Leonie's room and the little Madeleine cake that she gave him with his tea, begins to surface to his consciousness. Later, another memory surfaces with the handling of the texture of his napkin. It is the memory of gazing out the window of his seashore room and wiping his boyish face with a stiff napkin.

Swann's Way is loaded with lovely and haunting images of memories long past; of a young boy's discovery of the beautiful world around him, through scents, sounds and emotions. It is a wonderful compilation of segments of a life removed in time.

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