The states of kitsch in “Swann in love” by Marcel Proust and “The things” by Georges Perec

Abstract

The novels of Marcel Proust and Georges Perec present kitsch under the states of principles and modes according to the theoretical grid developed by Abraham Moles. This study therefore drew conceptual resources from the Psychologie du kitsch ou l’art du bonheur in order to analyze Un amour de Swann et Les choses. If to challenge social reality still implies being inspired by it, these works do not fail to plunge into the realities of the 19th and 20th centuries. However, at the threshold of the plots, the study has focused on the object in its acquisition, its use, its positioning, its contemplation, its manipulation. Thus, the technical words formulated by Abraham Moles offered statements such as the principle of inadequacy and accumulation as well as hedonistic, surrealist modes that revealed their literality. The kitsch offers a set of linguistic tools which explain phenomena observable at the social and literary level. As such, the object becomes the prism by which mentalities are defined. The novels of Marcel Proust and George Perec contain observations and sociological information rendered in aesthetic forms through the trial of snobbery.