My impressions of Marcel Proust’s, “Combray” were that the novel was overall intriguing, and I felt fairly engaged with the material. The use of imagery was very well articulated and even though the images created were set in dated time and caste, their presence still felt familiar.  The story glides through time in and out of dream sets and nostalgia which make the text interesting. However as some of my peers have pointed I can agree that how the phases of memories are laid out, make cataloging the chronological order very difficult. Sometimes the text feels like it becomes so lost in its reminiscing that it’s hard to tell where exactly the character stands in time. I think the novel effectively pulled on certain aspects of life and childhood that can be sympathized universally, to create a narrative that can be understood by most even though the author is describing what seems to be a very wealthy family. Tales of wealth can sometimes make a novel feel like the narrative is distant and out of reach of the reader, and I presumed the family is wealthy due to the “help” that is employed, and the brief discussion of class separation between the mother, her son and the housekeeper Francois. However in the time the book was written perhaps, the family is just middle class and not necessarily fabulously wealthy, but readers of today would view the family as privileged because employed “help” is usually reserved for the rich, so then again this brings up a separation in time between the reader and the contents of this novel. This is why I enjoyed how the author writes from the perspective of a young boy who for the majority of the exposition is afraid to go to bed alone without his mother. The description of this unsettling discomfort the boy feels knowing he must try to face sleep/insomnia without his mother near, is frustrating for a reader because that separation feels all too familiar. His anxieties can be sympathized with because they aren’t stagnant in a certain period or present only in specific social classes he is simply a young boy who’s become dependent on a routine and special goodnight rituals between him and his mother. The boy is anxious and his character directly mirrors his Aunt Léonie a described hypochondriac who is grief-stricken and not willing to continue moving forward with life after the death of her husband. Both the Aunt and the little boy present the theme of growing up and accepting change and how that is a concept that is neverending. The boy although he cannot see this in the moment, will eventually get used to sleeping without his mother’s goodnight kisses but then as life goes on he may find himself in a situation similar to his Aunt who would rather not continue to live, without someone instead of adapting to her new circumstances and finding a way through the anxiety and moments of separation.