Character dossiers
Primary figures from In Search of Lost Time, with analytical assessments and references to key moments and passages.
Compare characters
Fallen
Albertine
Highly central and highly negative, with much of her profile concentrated in the captivity and aftermath volumes.
- Units
- 177
- Top Lens
- Advantage 2%
Fallen
baron de Charlus
A major recurrent figure whose treatment is strongly negative overall but distributed across several distinct social terrains.
- Units
- 124
- Top Lens
- Advantage 3%
Ascendant
Bergotte
A highly positive literary figure whose advantage and prestige remain near the top of the corpus, with inclusion somewhat softer but still strong.
- Units
- 33
- Top Lens
- Advantage 97%
Fallen
Bloch
A heavily annotated figure whose treatment is almost uniformly and intensely negative across all three lenses.
- Units
- 61
- Top Lens
- Advantage 5%
Fallen
docteur Cottard
A recurrent social presence whose aggregate treatment stays modestly negative, with occasional prestige or advantage recoveries that never fully stabilize.
- Units
- 44
- Top Lens
- Prestige 26%
Fallen
duc de Guermantes
A major aristocratic figure whose aggregate profile is surprisingly negative across advantage, prestige, and inclusion alike.
- Units
- 61
- Top Lens
- Advantage 7%
Ascendant
duchesse de Guermantes
The clearest aggregate winner in the corpus, combining immediate advantage, prestige, and inclusion at the very top of all three lenses.
- Units
- 143
- Top Lens
- Advantage 100%
Fallen
Françoise
A frequent figure whose aggregate treatment is mostly negative, but with a few striking pockets of reversal and support.
- Units
- 70
- Top Lens
- Prestige 36%
Glamorous
Gilberte
A strongly prestige-positive figure whose advantage remains high while inclusion stays much more mixed and contingent.
- Units
- 44
- Top Lens
- Prestige 92%
Fallen
la grand-mère
A central emotional figure whose aggregate treatment is strikingly negative, especially in belonging and general appraisal.
- Units
- 65
- Top Lens
- Prestige 16%
Ascendant
la mère du narrateur
A strongly positive figure whose gains are grounded less in public rank than in steady rhetorical and relational authority.
- Units
- 34
- Top Lens
- Inclusion 89%
Fallen
Legrandin
A character of recurrent social and rhetorical diminishment, with especially weak advantage and prestige despite occasional brief reversals.
- Units
- 23
- Top Lens
- Inclusion 25%
Ascendant
M. Vinteuil
A relatively small-footprint but strongly positive figure, especially in inclusion, whose profile mixes early negativity with later recovery and elevation.
- Units
- 19
- Top Lens
- Inclusion 97%
Fallen
Mme de Cambremer
A lower-frequency but consistently negative figure whose aggregate treatment remains weak across all three lenses.
- Units
- 21
- Top Lens
- Prestige 15%
Estranged
Mme de Villeparisis
A socially legible figure whose prestige often holds better than her immediate advantage or belonging.
- Units
- 82
- Top Lens
- Prestige 70%
Fallen
Mme Verdurin
A substantial recurring presence whose aggregate treatment stays negative across all three lenses, especially in Swann-centered and later wartime material.
- Units
- 68
- Top Lens
- Prestige 21%
Ascendant
Norpois
One of the corpus's clearest rhetorical winners, with very high advantage and prestige and comparatively little cross-lens instability.
- Units
- 67
- Top Lens
- Advantage 95%
Estranged
Odette
Prestige-positive but inclusion-negative, with her sharpest gains and reversals concentrated in a few high-pressure chapters.
- Units
- 88
- Top Lens
- Prestige 95%
Estranged
Robert de Saint-Loup
One of the most frequent figures in the corpus, but also one of the most sharply split across prestige and inclusion.
- Units
- 197
- Top Lens
- Prestige 89%
Fallen
Swann
The most annotated figure in the corpus and one of its most consistently negative, especially in emotionally charged social passages.
- Units
- 263
- Top Lens
- Advantage 0%