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"The Lady In Pink: Dress And The Enigma Of Gendered Space In Marcel Proust's Fiction" , Eva Maria Stadler

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

A study of the role of clothing as central to issues of characterization, description and historical reference in Marcel Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu. Focus on Odette de Crécy, one of the central characters in the novel, a courtesan who becomes the wife of Charles Swann but who first captivates the narrator's imagination when, as a child, he briefly sees her as a "Lady in Pink."

Odette's role as a fashionable woman, as one of the best-dressed women in Parisian society, gives unity to her character. The description of her clothing, however, not only provides the occasion for …