There are only 26 letters in the English alphabet, and it's crazy to think that there an infinite number of words that can me made with only that small array of letters. As Wallace states, " What goes on inside is just to fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barley sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant." Letters as compared to words are only one tiny part of a puzzle piece. Words are so abundant that it's hard to state a theme or moral without elaborating on a topic with more than just a few words. Every mind works differently compared to the next, some are more detailed and others get to the point. Montaigne's style and techniques used in his book are to fast and interconnected, that they barely scratch the outline of what is meant to be said. His writing style supports Wallace's notion where as in Austen's Pride and Prejudice it has a simple storyline that is easy to follow. Montaigne's use of stream of consciousness goes against Austen's use of a plot. In comparison Austen's book are the letters and Montaigne's book are the words, but both letters and words need one another to connect ideas and tell a story.
Montaigne's Essays are exactly described by Wallace's notion. Montaigne throughout his whole book has one constant variable, and that is his stream of consciousness. He writes and writes about everything that he is thinking about it an unordered way. His thoughts can't be controlled but yet he still tries to connect his ideas in some way. He does this by separating his topics into essays. A lot of his essays use morals or themes to describe them. Even though Montaigne has a book full of words and is more than a thousand pages long, as a reader it is hard to connect his own thoughts into a personal viewpoint. His words are flowing out of his mind and onto paper. Truly Montaigne is the only who can understand his use of allusions and his references made to philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. One mind may work in a million different directions, but still only be fully interpreted by that single person, who wrote it.
On the contrary, Austen's essay is structured in a formal platform. The book is actually a story with a beginning middle and end and includes characters. In Montaignes's Essays he does not flow his thoughts into a storyline or uses characters, he simply writes about whatever topic comes to his mind next. Austen's storyline contradicts Wallace's notion. Her style actually connects one topic to the next and is portrayed to provide a conflict that is meant to be resolved. In Montaigne's essay he has many internal conflicts but never consistently resolves them. His idesa are being thrown all over the place and almost never connects to what he is writing down next, which makes it hard to comprehend. Austen's book is written in an old English language, where its difficult to understand at times. She has a consistent train of thought that she manages to produce a novel with themes, used in Monatgne's Essays as well, but her morals connect throughout the entire book. Montaigne's essays omit an understanding that an audience can have a personal connection with and Austen allows for an aura of love to be felt. Montaigne never built an intimate bridge between him and his readers, which makes his style less relatable too.
Letters were produced to make words and words were made to bring meaning to a language. These words are transferred into books to tell a story, no matter how straightforward or how complicated it might be to comprehend. Two very different styles were used in Montagne's Essays and Austen's Pride and Prejudice. One aspect that both books shared was the ability to offer pieces of writing that interconnected words to produce a common theme. No matter how different two genres of writing seem to be, there is consistency and courage that comes with being able to put one's own perspective of something onto paper.
No comments:
Post a Comment