Imagery of Paths
Proust shares details of various paths traversed in the novel by the narrator, chief among which is the path by Swann's home. The detailed imagery of these paths helps create the entire neighborhoods of the novel in order to provide a sense of expansiveness and freedom.
The Madeleine
Proust connects taste to the world of the novel. In particular, the taste of a madeleine cookie eaten by the narrator expands to other sensory imagery including that of sight, sound, and scent. The narrator's reaction of this taste is set up by the taste itself, and the act of eating it is also presented using imagery.
The Narrator's Mother
A vivid scene from the narrator's youth consists of his interaction with his mother during and after a dinner party. She does not kiss him goodnight, but he gets her to read to him late into the night. The narrator's precision in casting details of how his mother looked when reading to him establishes a baseline for physical description of female characters in Proust's series.
Venice and Balbec
At the end of the novel, the narrator dreams of visiting someplace else. Sick in bed, he thinks about Venice and Balbec in vivid detail as two options for escapes. The church in Balbec carries meaning as a freeing and restful place, and the images of both locations both show the narrator's state of mind clearly in addition to creating senses of the places themselves.
