 The protagonists of the first volume (the narrator as a boy and Swann) are, by the standards of 19th century novels, remarkably introspective and passive, nor do they trigger action from other leading characters; to contemporary readers, reared on Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo, and Leo Tolstoy, they would not function as centers of a plot.While there is an array of symbolism in the work, it is rarely defined through explicit "keys" leading to moral, romantic or philosophical ideas.The significance of what is happening is often placed within the memory or in the inner contemplation of what is described.