Montaigne/ Austen Essay
“What goes on 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.” This was David Foster Wallace’s way of saying that our brain is a wondrous machine, electronic impulses through the various axons and dendrites connect in a massive web, mapping the human experience through chemicals and the movement of electrons. This huge web of cells causes us to associate things with one another, due to similarities in experiences, and repeated exposure to things. This association and inter connection, as the above quote says, is to huge for us to explain with our language, or even to ourselves. Many people have attempted to outline this phenomena, as to explain themselves, and how they work, to themselves. One such man was Michael de Montaigne, in his book “Essais,” or attempts, attempts at mapping his brain.
When Michael set about writing his essays, he did not care about becoming a great writer, he just wanted to explain his brain. By writing what came to his mind, when he effectively made this “sketch” of his brains, that Wallace so described. Montaigne’s essays were not scripted of carefully revised like one that would be written for academic purposes, but more like a videotape of his thoughts. In this way, we can see everything that he is thinking about, and see how somebody else’s mind works. In many of his essays, he shows how the brain is not focused on one topic, but a dynamic system. He maps how his thoughts can start at one view he has, and rapidly go through his experiences, each one pertaining to its predecessor, and eventually ending up very different from the original, much like the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” This method of writing also gives readers a tour through Montaigne’s emotions.
Montaigne’s writing journey through his mind and emotions is much like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, as both works are attempts to put on paper the lives of their authors. In Austen’s case, the character of Elizabeth Bennet is Austen’s attempt to explain how she would act. Everything Lizzie does is a reflection on herself, and how she would act in these situations. Like Montaigne, she is holding a study of herself through her writing, to see how she works. The author’s books were just as much for themselves as for the reader, and they took their writing seriously.
Essays and Pride and Prejudice are also very different. Montaigne had a very dry, and arguably more efficient, approach toward his goal of self discovery. While writing, he just wrote what came to mind, giving a convoluted web of thoughts on a paper, much like the workings of the brain. Austen on the other hand had a much more interesting, and deeper, approach. Instead of just thinking about things and writing what she though, she decided to put herself into different situations, so that she could better understand how situations would cause her to react. Austen’s method may be a better way to understand yourself, because what are thoughts if you do not know how you would react. After reading both works, I feel that I know Austen much better, as I have seen her in many different scenarios. On the other hand, I know how Michael de Montaigne is wired, possibly letting me make inferences on what he will think about.
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