What exactly is the meaning of the madeleine and the tea in all this? Let us first take a closer look at the madeleine. Interestingly enough, an earlier version of the famous madeleine scene reveals that it was initially not a piece of madeleine but a piece of toasted bread (pain grillé), that Marcel dipped into his tea, which then reminded him of the biscuit his grandfather would offer him at breakfast when he was a child. Walker, Cryptic Subtexts, 85. This earlier version is part of a collection of early essays written by Proust, Contre Sainte-Beuve (“Against Sainte-Beuve”). Clearly, Proust later on changed his mind and chose to use a madeleine in this scene instead. Considering the meaning of la Madeleine as both the Catholic saint Mary Magdalene as well as the church with the same name which Proust had been familiar with from a young age, a more religious meaning of the madeleine was perhaps intended. Walker, Cryptic Subtexts, 85. This earlier version is part of a collection of early essays written by Proust, Contre Sainte-Beuve (“Against Sainte-Beuve”).
Just like in Marcel’s theory on recalling memories, it is in Catholic sacraments that objects from ordinary daily life play a key role in symbolic acts. In the sacrament of the Eucharist for example, "bread" and "wine" are the main objects that symbolize the body and blood of Christ respectively. At the beginning of the novel, we can read a short reference to this when Marcel compares his mother’s face to a Communion bread (host) when she kisses him goodnight, as he writes ‘…when she had bent her loving face down over my bed, and held it out to me like a host for an act of peace-giving communion in which my lips might imbibe her real presence and with it the power to sleep. Proust, In Search of Lost Time, 15.
In a similar way, the madeleine scene seems to share the same rituality and order of actions as the Eucharist. Walker, Cryptic Subtexts, 86. After all, much as the priest who offers communion to the communicant, it is Marcel’s mother who offers him both the tea and a piece of a madeleine. Following this, the priest’s ritual statement of unworthiness “Domine, non sum dignus”, shows when Marcel first refuses his mother’s offer but then accepts it. Then, like the priest’s breaking of the bread and drinking of the wine, it is described how Marcel brings to his lips a teaspoon of tea in which has been softened a piece of madeleine. Walker, Cryptic Subtexts, 86.The ritual nature of the madeleine scene is further suggested when Marcel tries the madeleine and the tea three times in his attempt to recapture and better understand the sudden moment of exquisite joy he felt when tasting the madeleine and the tea.Proust, In Search of Lost Time, 61: ‘I drink a second mouthful, in which I find nothing more than in the first, then a third, which gives me rather less than the second. It is time to stop; the potion is losing its virtue.’ Finally, this process culminates into the sudden recollection of his memory of the village of Combray: ‘And suddenly, the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass) my aunt Léonie used to give me when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane.’ Ibidem. Quite interestingly, the tisane is lime tea.
The same rituality of the madeleine scene can be further explained against the background of the popularity of Japonisme in Proust’s times, that brought along a focus on tea ceremonies, and is also reflected in the figure of Odette Swan, who is slinking in kimonos and furnishes her apartment with Japanese lanterns and silks and Chinese porcelains.Hokenson, Japan, France, and East-West Aesthetics, 206. In the madeleine scene, we find that Proust compares the cup of tea with a porcelain bowl filled with water as a japoniste metaphor for bringing to consciousness his involuntary memories: ‘(…) as in the game wherein the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little pieces of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, solid and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden (…) and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.’ Proust, In Search of Lost Time, 64-5.
Similar to the Catholic ceremonies, the Japanese children’s game represents the transformation of ordinary objects (paper bits) into a new order of reality.Hokenson, Japan, France, and East-West Aesthetics, 205. It is from this point onwards that also Marcel’s memories will slowly start to form the building blocks of the novel. The importance of this whole process lies in the growing conclusion which he draws from this: that he should not only seek, but also create, to create a new reality from his recollected memories and past experiences: a piece of art.