MONTAIGNE/AUSTEN ESSAY

Many people come across a moment when writing where they have what seems like an endless amount of thought, but have trouble trying to figure out what to actually write down. As David Foster Wallace states, people’s thoughts are “too fast and huge and all interconnected” to be conveyed in words “that can only sketch the outlines” of it. As true as his statement is, Michel de Montaigne demonstrates this notion in his work. Montaigne’s writing techniques and topics in his essays clearly supports Foster’s notion through his use of stream of conscience. Although he writes down his ideas as he ponders it, he only writes a glimpse of his thoughts. Like Montaigne, Jane Austen provides an outline of her thought on human nature in her work.

In The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, the author talks about several topics which support Foster’s idea. In chapter forty-two, the topic of human inequality is explained in many pages. Although this chapter explains the tendencies for people to classify their social differences, there was a near infinite amount of thought that Montaigne could have written about. However, he could not do that due to the obvious reason of limited paper. Another topic that the author “barely sketched” was life and death. In chapter 19, his idea of the meaning of life and death is looked at from a very summarized viewpoint. It can be assumed that Montaigne had much more thought on just this one topic that he could not have all conveyed in words. By using the stream of consciousness, the most important words to express his vast reflection on life and death allowed him to form his “thoughts on paper”. His topics and technique in writing his essays provides a clear example of David Foster Wallace’s notion since his long essays still only captures a glimpse of Montaigne’s thoughts.

Just as how the inventor of the essay provided a window into Foster’s idea, Jane Austen provides examples of the same, but through a different technique. Unlike stream of consciousness, Austen’s Pride and Prejudice embraces Foster’s notion through a fictional story. She conveys a part of human nature, namely pride and prejudice people tend to have. After Darcy proposed to Elizabeth and got rejected, he wrote her a letter with his true feelings and knowledge on affairs. This was when Elizabeth realized the prejudice she held for Darcy the whole time. After this emotional and important scene, Elizabeth’s feelings for her man changes forever. Austen could not have possibly conveyed each and every little emotion of Elizabeth. If so, this scene alone may have ended up being half of the novel in length. Austen’s use of third person narrative also limits the amount of thought and feeling of the characters. In other words, the author was only able to convey a small segment of each character’s thoughts and feelings because of Foster’s idea.

David Foster Wallace’s understanding of the human thinking is too large to be able to be interpreted into text. Due to this idea, people are only able to present a small segment of their entire train of thought for others to understand. Some people, like Michel de Montaigne and Jane Austen, support this notion through their respective works. Montaigne provides a window into this idea through his use of stream of conscience in The Essays of Michel de Montaigne. Jane Austen does the same but instead through a third person perspective and a fictional plot. The limits to a person’s amount of thought is endless, but the limit to the person’s ability to convey their thought in words are limited, just like David Foster Wallace’s perception.