Sadisme filial et vocation littéraire chez Marcel Proust
In A la recherche du temps perdu, every filial relationship is one where the son inevitably causes his mother suffering by committing, according to Proust, a form of parricide. The writings of Marcel Proust before la Recherche, such as the short story “A young girl’s confession” and the newspaper article “Filial sentiments of a parricide”, allow us to understand this ambiguous relationship, at the heart of which we can find the unmeasured love that the son feels for his parent, a love so intense that it soon becomes suffocating. Under these conditions, the parent comes to symbolize to the child “the moral Law” against which he must rebel, choosing cruelty as his weapon. The son, if he is one of those who can stand the sight of their own crimes, enters then in a vicious cycle: with his daily acts of cruelty, he kills – symbolically or in genuinely – the beloved parent, and he enjoys it.  Following this act of sadism, he feels an unbearable guilt that leads him to an even greater masochistic devotion for his parent.  Yet, through the character of the narrator of la Recherche, Proust demonstrates that there is indeed one way to free oneself from this painful guilt, and it is through Art.  Creation, the ultimate crime, excuses and even justifies any previous acts of cruelty. It is the only way of transforming suffering (resulting among other things, from the guilt of having enjoyed causing a beloved parent any kind of suffering) into universal ideas, into art.
Marcel Proust In search of lost time Mother Guilt Creation Sadism Masochism Homosexuality Sexuality