Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Mohsen Sarebannejad ¹
• Marzieh Piravi Vanak ²

¹ Ph.D. Candidate, Advanced Art Studies, College of Fine Arts, University of Tehran

² Full Professor, Philosophy of Art, Faculty of Research Excellence in Art and Entrepreneurship, Art University of Isfahan

Abstract

This article adopts an intertextual and comparative approach to analyze Marcel Proust’s novel In Search of Lost Time alongside the German series Dark. The central inquiry of the study concerns the ways in which time is configured through narrative, memory, and lived experience, and how these configurations relate to human identity and agency. The research method is descriptive – analytical, with data gathered through library and documentary sources. The theoretical framework draws on Bergson’s notion of “lived duration,” Deleuze’s reflections on “difference and repetition,” and Ricoeur’s theory of narrative. The comparative analysis demonstrates that in Proust’s world, involuntary memory and sensory experience reanimate the past in the present, turning narrative into a vehicle for the creation of new meaning. In Dark, by contrast, cyclical structures of causality and memories that at times belong to the future expose the rupture of linear causality and give rise to a distinctive form of “temporal memory.” Both works highlight the role of repetition in shaping identity as a fluid, narrative process—an identity formed within temporal determinism yet still retaining the possibility of creativity and freedom. Ultimately, the two texts converge in presenting an image of modern humanity in which time is not external to the individual but emerges within the very fabric of lived experience and narrative.

Keywords

• lived time
• memory
• narrative
• In Search of Lost Time
• Dark