The work is permeated by memories triggered by involuntary sensory impressions, like the taste of a madeleine. These involuntary memories are key to reclaiming lost time and reveal the hidden beauty and meaning of past moments. The narrator realizes that the past exists not linearly but in fragments and sensory impressions that can be brought back to life through our senses.

Proust paints a multi-layered picture of love in all its facets – from youthful infatuation with Gilberte Swann to the passionate but doomed love for Albertine Simonet. The narrator experiences how love can bring jealousy, obsession, and loss. Proust's analysis of love is characterized by psychological depth and reveals the complicated dynamics between lovers and the illusions we project onto our relationships.

The novel is a meditation on the inevitability of change and the transience of time. The narrator observes how society around him changes, how friends and acquaintances age and die. This realization leads him to question the meaning of life and the desire to preserve passing time through art and memory.