Madeleines

I saw a wonderful photo the other day of a Ralph Lauren inspired and decorated Airstream. I downloaded the photos to my desktop and have been gazing at them for several days now. They evoke a warmth and desire in me I haven’t felt in years. I’m not surprised. They are visual metaphors, invoking involuntary memories of camping cabins I have happy memories of. I was just surprised at their power, even knowing where it comes from. Thank you Marcel.

French novelist Marcel Proust might have faded into all but literary obscurity except for his most well-known work about the notion of involuntary memory, and an oft quoted phrase about Madelines. Involuntary memory is a term Proust actually coined to describe cues or triggers we encounter in everyday life that set off memories or feelings from our past with no conscious effort from us in the process. Smell wood smoke, cookies or pie baking, or hear the crackle of a freshly lit fire, or some other visual, auditory or kinetic event and like many of us, some fond memory leaps to mind. Unlike conscious memory in which we struggle to remember details and emotions, involuntary memory leaps from the darkness of our subconscious - dragging emotion, memory and our past with it - snapping every fiber of our focus to attention. It’s quite amazing really. For those suffering from some past horror, involuntary memory can be triggered by a backfiring car, the sound of a helicopter, the wail of a police siren. Involuntary memory can bless or curse us. And that’s why metaphor, which can trigger a kind of involuntary memory, can be so powerful.

Anyway, Proust’s long and sometime boring piece, except for the most famous passage about the “episode of the Madeleine,” is still a good read because he captures this event so well. Background: The Madeline is a small French cake, famous mostly for its reference in Proust’s novel, “In Search of Lost Time.” The narrator in the book experiences an emotional awakening, an involuntary memory, upon tasting a Madeleine dipped in tea:

“She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called petites Madeleine, which look as though they had been molded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim’s shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place…at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory…”

You will find this passage quoted frequently by anyone from attorneys to perfume sellers who want to impress upon their reader the power of evoked memory. We quote it for good reason. It conveys the power of involuntary memory within us. We grasp the power of the passage not because of the words - but because we’ve been there. We’ve been transported back in time by the scent of a loved one’s cologne or perfume on the coat of a passerby. We’ve unexpectedly had a spouse bring us coffee or breakfast in bed that evoked a parent’s care when we were sick children. We’ve been comforted by the mere act of picking up a child’s stuffed animal if we too cuddled one as a child.

NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) programmers call such events “anchoring” opportunities. These programmers actually create or have us recall such powerful memories in order to form an anchor (such as snapping our fingers or touching two fingers together) to evoke this emotion for other purposes when needed or desired. If you are a marketer, storyteller or sales person - or if you just want to evoke a strong emotion in someone, using written or visual metaphors when telling your story is one way to tap into this involuntary memory if your audience shares the emotions. It’s why Harley-Davidson patented the sound of its motorcycle engine, and why Coca-Cola “owns” the color red. It’s why “branding” is so important - those are all ways to tap into the power of the subconscious and direct (or even control) a person’s decisions and feelings. Strong branding means strong loyalty.

Check the ads in your local grocery. Although most dairy and food products are produced in modern factories, you’ll still see the old fashioned images of farms, barns and pastures on the product itself. They’re meant to evoke a feeling of wholeness, freshness and calm. They’re less effective today since most people under 30 have never been on a farm and don’t have the memories, but still, they’re very effective. Most advertising in fact relies on visual metaphors and color association. Think of what holidays we associate with orange and black, or red and green, or pink and white.

Metaphor then can be very powerful for good or bad, depending on its association to your audience. It can also work its magic on you as well. The next time you feel strangely drawn to a product, service, person, place or thing - stop and look for the metaphor, the involuntary memory. And think seriously about incorporating metaphor into your own stories.