This close reading will focus on pages 333- 335, the reading begins at the end of the 332, the sentence begins:<\/p>\n
\u201cI should have like at least to lie down for a little while on the bed, but to what purpose, since I should\u00a0 not have been able to procure any rest for that mass of sensations<\/em> which is for each of us his conscious if not his physical body, and since the unfamiliar objects<\/em> which encircled that body, forcing it to a place it\u2019s perceptions on the permanent footing of a vigilant defensive, would have kept my sight, my hearing, all my senses in a position as cramped and uncomfortable (even if I had stretched out my legs) as that of a Cardinal La Balue in the cage in which he could neither stand nor sit?\u201d<\/p>\n In this sentence, which is actually a question, Proust, through his narrator, M, begins to describe his initial response to his room in Balbec. M refers to himself, his body and \/or mind, as a \u201cmass of sensations\u201d and being put on a permanent footing of vigilant defensive due to being encircled by unfamiliar objects. He also implies in this sentence that he knew as soon as he entered that he would be uncomfortable. Most people feel uncomfortable when they enter a new environment, one full of unknown factors. This sensation is felt before the conscious mind notices it, and then it tries to figure out why.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is our noticing them that puts things in a room, our growing used to them that takes them away again and clears a space for us.\u201d<\/p>\n M now recognizes these objects not as real tangible things which continue to exist after we\u2019ve stopped thinking of them, but as thought forms which exist only in the intangible and nebulous reality of his own consciousness. Proust reveals here, as he has throughout the series, that the story takes place entirely within the mind of the Narrator, M drifts back and forth through time as he puts together his story in streaming bursts of memory.<\/p>\n \u201cSpace there was none for me in my bedroom (mine in name only) at Balbec; it was full of things which did not know me, which flung back at me the distrustful glance I cast at them, and, without taking and heed of my existence, showed that I was interrupting the humdrum course of theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe clock\u2014whereas at home I heard mine tick only a few seconds in a week, when I was coming out of some profound meditation\u2014continued without a moments interruption to utter, in and unknown tongue, a series of observations which, must have been most uncomplimentary to myself, for the violet curtains listened to them without replying, but in an attitude such as people adopt who shrug their shoulders to indicate that the sight of a third person irritates them.\u201d<\/p>\n Now M begins to personify the thought forms of the objects in the room. He applies the social customs he has been raised with to the Clock and the Curtains. He takes from the Curtain\u2019s silent listening to the Clock\u2019s constant ticking to imply that the clock is criticizing him in an unknown language which the Curtains apparently understand and are too polite to translate. He is trying to retro rationalize his discomfort by imagining that he has committed the social faux pas of interrupting the lives of inanimate objects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This close reading will focus on pages 333- 335, the reading begins at the end of the 332, the sentence begins: “I should have like at least to lie down for a little while on the bed, but to what… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}