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Albertine: Characterization Through Image and Symbol
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
IN A la recherche du temps perdu Marcel Proust often portrays Albertine through imagery perceived by the narrator, Marcel. The loved object, Albertine, is predominantly a projection of Marcel's desires. The images through which he sees her communicate his emotional experience—happiness, jealousy, passion, suffering, and indifference—with Albertine. Springing from the depths of his consciousness, they are outpourings of lyricism. Consequently, the mood which sustains them cannot last for a long period of time. When these images, which are interspersed throughout the novel, are isolated and then juxtaposed, they form a lyrical poem.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1969
References
1 Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu, iii, 374–375. Henceforth, all references in parentheses will be to the three-volume Pléiade edition of this work and will include only the volume and page numbers.
2 In The Imagery of Proust (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966), Victor E. Graham has attributed Proust's use of sea and water imagery to the author's conception of the world as being eternal and in constant flux, and to the poetic beauty of the sea. To prove his point, he gives many examples of sea imagery employed by Proust in his evocation of Albertine. Although Mr. Graham is not wrong as far as he goes, he offers no special importance for the sea imagery in reference to Albertine.
3 See in, 97: “D'ailleurs, Albertine m'effrayait en me disant que j'avais raison … de dire que je n'étais pas son amant, puisque aussi bien, ajoutait-elle, ‘c'est la vérité que vous ne l'êtes pas.’ Je ne l'étais peut-être pas complètement en effet… ”
4 See iii, 95: “elle me donnait des satisfactions charnelles, et puis elle était intelligente. Mais tout cela était une superfétation. Ce qui m'occupait l'esprit n'était pas ce qu'elle avait pu dire d'intelligent, mais tel mot qui éveillait chez moi un doute sur ses actes …”
5 Carl John Black, Jr., has written a perceptive and original article called “Albertine as an Allegorical Figure of Time”— Romanic Review, liv (Oct. 1963), 171–186. Mr. Black's interpretation of Albertine as a “grande déesse du Temps” traces the intricacy and scope of the heroine's metaphorical role both as a psychological and structural entity.