Mothers, Madams, and Lady-Like Men: Proust and the Maternal (Marcel Proust Studies , Vol 4)

Marcel Proust's obsession with femininity is the focus of this study. The patterns that emerge from the characterization of the female experience in La Recherche demonstrate how heterosexuality (attributed to the narrator) becomes an unobtainable identity for members of the Proustian universe. The maternal influence is thus deemed insignificant in the configuration of Proust's sexual preference.