Proust's Snobs, Inverts, and Jews: Performing and Subverting Identity in La Recherche

An intersectional investigation of identity formation in Marcel Proust's magnum opus.

As metonyms for broader categories such as class, sexuality, and ethnicity, the three most discussed identity groups in Proust's À la Recherche du Temps Perdu – snobs, inverts, and Jews – prove to be deeply intertwined and perplexing representations. Attentive to these interwoven complexities, Proust's Snobs, Inverts, and Jews examines the novelist's exploitation of classification systems as a means to subvert the notion of a fixed identity.

To illustrate Proust's challenges to a social order that restricts our perceptions of identity, Adeline Soldin addresses the inconsistencies and friction surrounding the portrayal of these key figures in his seven-volume novel. Many scholars have recognized that the narrator's formative journey in La Recherche leads to disillusionment and increased mockery of his fellow characters. Soldin contends, however, that Proust does not merely deride characters' behavior, but rather interrogates their diverse motivations and tendencies, thereby exposing the performative nature of identity.

Proust's Snobs, Inverts, and Jews draws on Judith Butler's theories of performativity to illustrate Proust's precocious portrayal of identity in La Recherche as an elusive, unattainable idea that characters pursue yet consistently fail to establish. Ultimately, the enigmatic and anonymous narrator models fluidity and promotes fantasy and imagination to compensate for the limitations imposed on individuals by social and linguistic conventions.