Montaigne/Austen Essay

            The inner workings of human beings are undoubtedly complicated. We are obviously made of organs, muscles, and the things we can physically see, but what is truly spectacular and enigmatic about us is the part we can’t see. Our ability to think and have a consciousness is what truly makes us human but we have yet to really know why this is. As humans we even have a hard time explaining it with words. As David Foster Wallace once said, “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.” An example of literary that supports this statement very well is the work of Montaigne. He uses many techniques and topics to support what is being said by Foster in his essays that he wrote about human nature and how we act.

            

             The essays that are written by Montaigne truly do support Foster’s notion. Montaigne’s essays try to decipher the reasons that humans do what they do but he finds that there is no way to explain it because it is too complicated for us to comprehend. Montaigne writes down what he observes about people in generally and tries to describe it but it’s not that simple. Every human is different and we all act in our own ways and no amount of words can describe the reason why we act in a certain way. This is why Montaigne’s essays definitely support the notion made by Foster and his way of thinking about the inner workings of humans.

            

             Montaigne uses stream of consciousness to provide a window for the reader into what he is thinking. This is the reason why Montaigne’s thoughts seem disconnected. We as humans naturally get distracted and begin to start thinking about random things and there is no order to the way we think. This is completely different compared to the book Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. In Pride and Prejudice, Austen does not use stream of consciousness but instead uses third-person limited in the story. This offers readers insight on the most important things that the characters need to discuss and it also has a way of thinking that stays on topic unlike Montaigne. We only know what Elizabeth thinks of Darcy and marriage because she discusses it with her sister and that is often the topic of their conversations. In Montaigne we have more insight to the way humans think and do things because of the way it is told to the readers.

            

            The human mind will always be a mysterious place that we will never be able to describe with words as David Foster Wallace says in his notion. Montaigne’s support his notion but mainly due to his writing in a stream of consciousness style. It would be impossible for Montaigne to write what he wanted to if he wrote in like Austen did in Pride and Prejudice. It might have been impossible for Montaigne to support the notion if it were written any differently.