Proust's Male Narratee

Judith Fetterley has argued that female readers cannot relate to the vast majority of great American works and that the very act of reading implicates women in their own oppression. A study of the narratee in A la recherche du temps perdu suggests that Fetterley's observations may also apply to Proust's novel. Indeed, many passages imply a male narratee and thus force female readers to set aside their feminine specificity and to accept a reality foreign to them. Other parts of the novel alienate women because they call for a male reader who shares with the narrator strong antifeminine values which women can only reject. Such elements call into question the universality of the novel and of its conclusions.