Marcel Proust Reading

 I found Marcel Proust's "Combray" to be really interesting. It made me think about how dreams can be intertwined with memories. The opening of the story portrayed how the author was walking through memory lane and how dreams are associated with revealing your innermost thoughts and memories. This made me think about how sometimes I dream about things or people that I haven’t thought about in a long time. When I wake up, it makes me think about my past and memories. The long sentences reflect the journey that the author is going through to unlock the memories within him. 

At first, when I was reading this book, I found it confusing and difficult to understand because the author started to go through different time periods and memories which made it seem scattered. At the same time, it made me think about how memories, especially of our childhood, are not always clear or precise. 

However, when the author was describing his action of sipping the tea and eating a madeleine, it made me think about how some memories are still crystal clear for me even though they happened years ago. I found it interesting that the author made this contrast about the descriptions of the memories. 

I thought it was interesting that this story was written from a first person point of view which indicates how he recounts his life through memories. For instance, when he talks about when he had fallen asleep, he didn’t know how he was and how he got there, it made me think that he was confused and that his memories and thoughts were jumbled up. 

The imagery of darkness and light which was employed through the image of the candle sticks and the moonlight further reinforces Proust trying to figure out his memories and make sense of them. Proust tries to evoke this struggle through not his language choice and sentence choice, but through sensory imageries, so that the readers can understand his confusion about the memories lurking within him. It made me wonder about why his memories were fragmented at first compared to his memories with his mother in Combray. This could point to how his fragmented memories echo the dark images within the story, indicating how he is unsure he is about them.  However, the light images indicate a sense of him being about to get out of his head. This could point to how he had better memories and happier times in Combray.