Proust Questionnaire
Ice-breaker activity:
In the back pages of Vanity Fair each month, readers find The Proust Questionnaire, a
series of questions posed to famous subjects about their lives, thoughts, values and
experiences.
The great French writer Marcel Proust (pronounced proost) was born in 1871 and died in
1922. He wrote the loosely autobiographical, seven-part work titled Remembrance of
Things Past.
Senior editor of Vanity Fair Aimee Bell, a fan of Proust, took on the task of researching
and producing this feature, with the assistance of the University of Kansas professor
Theodore Johnson, a noted authority on Proust. Since July of 1993, a major celebrity has
responded to a version of the questionnaire.
Over the years, there have been many “get to know you”-style questionnaires, but this
one has some history. Proust didn’t invent these questions, though he did answer them at
the age of 13 at the birthday party of Antoinette Felix-Faure (in 1884), and then again at
age 20. (Apparently parties were a lot more intellectual than they are now!) Consider 13
year old Marcel’s answer to a few of these questions…
Where would you like to live?
In the country of the Ideal, or, rather, of my ideal.
What is your idea of earthly happiness?
To live in contact with those I love, with the beauties of nature, with a
quantity of books and music, and to have, within easy distance, a French
theater.
Who are your favorite heroines in real life?
A woman of genius leading an ordinary life.
Instructions:
Write a quick response to each question. Feel free to skip any that make you
uncomfortable. Next, choose the three that you will share with the class. Stand up,
introduce yourself to the class, and share your three.
** I go first! I try then to write down each student’s name and add something distinctive
that they’ve shared on a seating chart to help me remember their names. Next class, I try
to say each name with the unique comment.
The Proust Questionnaire
1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
2. What is your greatest fear?
3. Which living person do you most admire?
4. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
5. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
6. What is your greatest extravagance?
7. On what occasion do you lie?
8. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
9. When and where were you happiest?
10. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
11. If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?
12. What is your favorite occupation (i.e. thing to do)?
13. What is your most marked characteristic?
14. What do you most value in your friends?
15. Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
16. Who are your heroes in real life?
17. How would you like to die?
18. What is your motto?
19. What is your favorite color?
20. What is your present state of mind?