Austen/Montaigne Essay

    “The Broad and Structured”

    There is a broad spectrum of ideas that are unable to be seen as concrete. There are drawn to scale, but never quite completed or understood. David Foster Wallace said in his quote “What goes inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant.” Montaigne’s techniques and topics contradict with Foster’s notion while Austen’s style supports it.

    Montaigne has such a complex and insightful way of thinking that he confuses his reader. What goes on in his mind is so fast and huge that it makes his philosophies hard to digest. Montaigne’s essays contradict Foster’s notion because he lacks simplicity and privacy in his thoughts. In every excerpt of Montaigne’s essay the reader is inside of Montaigne’s head, viewing his thoughts and feelings about his topics on liars, speech, fear, cowardice and others. It is impossible to take it all in, therefore the reader is forced to sketch an idea of his idea.

    Montaigne’s most evident literary device is Stream of consciousness. His style throughout his essays is an uninterrupted collection of thoughts. Because of Stream of consciousness the reader is able to read Montaigne’s thoughts as he thought them for the first time. This river of flowing thoughts really enabled the reader to get to view Montaigne not just as an author, but also as a human being with strong opinions.

    The novel “Pride and Prejudice” is well organized with characters and a plot, theme and setting. In the novel Austen’s opinion is not required, because each character has their own. Austen is trying to get the reader to understand how life in the 1800’s was and how important marriage and social classes were. Also how love can triumph in any obstacle. Unlike Montaigne, Austen did not have to come up with any evidence for why she wrote what she wrote.

    Austen’s style of writing is much more structured than Montaigne’s due to the fact that her opinions were not published as clear as were Montaigne’s. The point of view was in third person making the novel much more relaxed and not personal. The novel consisted of characters and their thoughts and feeling which is really what differed the two literature works.

    Both works of literature have different styles. Referring to Foster’s notion, Montaigne’s essays contradicted it while Austen’s supported it. The stream of consciousness of Montaigne was too huge for the reader to wrap their head around while Austen’s structure was  complete and comprehensive.