The Captive by Marcel Proust (1913)
The Captive is the fifth volume of Marcel Proust's seven-part novel, In Search of Lost Time. It follows the narrator, Marcel, as he continues to explore his relationships with the people in his life, including his beloved Albertine. The novel begins with Marcel's return to Paris after a long absence. He is reunited with his friends, and his love for Albertine is rekindled. However, Marcel is plagued by jealousy and insecurity, and he begins to suspect that Albertine is having an affair with another woman. He decides to keep her under close watch, and his suspicions eventually lead to a confrontation between the two. The novel follows Marcel as he struggles to come to terms with his feelings for Albertine, and his attempts to control her. He is torn between his love for her and his fear of losing her, and his obsession with her leads him to increasingly desperate measures. The Captive is a powerful exploration of love, jealousy, and obsession, and it is considered one of the most important works of modern literature.
By Marcel Proust · First published 1913 · Genre: Modernist Literature, Realism, Romance · 3 chapters · 159,204 words
First lines
At daybreak, my face still turned to the wall, and before I had seen above the big inner curtains what tone the first streaks of light assumed, I could already tell what sort of day it was. The first sounds from the street had told me, according to whether they came to my ears dulled and distorted by the moisture of the atmosphere or quivering like arrows in the resonant and empty area of a spacious, crisply frozen, pure morning; as soon as I heard the rumble of the first tramcar, I could tell whether it was sodden with rain or setting forth into the blue. And perhaps these sounds had themselves been forestalled by some swifter and more pervasive emanation which, stealing into my slumber, diffused in it a melancholy that seemed to presage snow, or gave utterance (through the lips of a little person who occasionally reappeared there) to so many hymns to the glory of the sun that, having first of all begun to smile in my sleep, having prepared my eyes, behind their shut lids, to be dazzled, I awoke finally amid deafening strains of music. It was, moreover, principally from my bedroom that I took in the life of the outer world during this period. I know that Bloch reported that, when he called to see me in the evenings, he could hear the sound of conversation; as my mother was at Combray and he never found anybody in my room, he concluded that I was talking to myself. When, much later, he learned that Albertine had been staying with me at the time, and realised that I had concealed her presence from all my friends, he declared that he saw at last the reason why, during that episode in my life, I had always refused to go out of doors. He was wrong. His mistake was, however, quite pardonable, for the truth, even if it is inevitable, is not always conceivable as a whole. People who learn some accurate detail of another person's life at once deduce consequences which are not accurate, and see in the newly discovered fact an explanation of things that have no connexion with it whatsoever.
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The Captive is listed on Textopian as a novel by Marcel Proust, dated 1913 CE.
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- Work type: Novel
- Author: Marcel Proust
- Date: 1913 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Modernist Literature, Realism, Romance, Psychological Fiction, Experimental Fiction
- Length: 159,204 words
- Structure: 3 chapters, 370 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Difficult (10th-12th Grade)
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Genres
- Modernist Literature — The Captive is part of Marcel Proust's seven-volume novel, In Search of Lost Time, which is considered a masterpiece of modernist literature.
- Realism — The Captive is a realistic novel, as it is based on Proust's own experiences and observations of French society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
- Romance — The Captive is a romantic novel, as it follows the story of two lovers, Albertine and the narrator, and their tumultuous relationship.
- Psychological Fiction — The Captive is a psychological novel, as it explores the narrator's inner thoughts and feelings about his relationship with Albertine.
Tags
Autobiographical fiction · Fiction · France · Modernism · Novel · Social life and customs · albertine · albertine's · andrée · balbec · baron · charlus