Additional Thoughts: Austen/Montaigne Essay

When I left class and rested my mind a little bit I realized that I actually had a better understanding than I thought I did. The interruption during the essay did cause me to forget important parts of my thought process that I would've wanted to have written in my essay and when I returned to class I spent a while trying to get my mind back in "the zone." Usually when it comes to essays, whether they be in class or at home, I rather just sit down for however long I have and bang out the essay by just writing what comes to mind. Yet for the sake of not embracing complete whining because it won't get anyone anywhere I am just going to continue by writing down what I hope I would've said in my essay.


Extended metaphors were a key player in providing a window into Montaigne's thoughts because his use of them would ultimately reflect the main theme of his essay. In his essay "That Fortune is Often Times Observed to Act by the Rules of Reason", Montaigne uses the story of the Duke of Valentinois having decided to poison the Cardinal of Corneto in order to begin expressing his thoughts on greed and deception. By using extended metaphors Montaigne is able to make clear how much he truly dislikes lying and selfishness and does a much better job of capturing his thoughts in a general sense. This differs from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice because Austen uses characterization and symbolism in order to capture her thoughts on a general scale. For example, Mr. Darcy's letter to Elizabeth Bennet is a symbol of people's failure to give others the benefit of a doubt and not hold prejudice against others which directly connects to the theme of not allowing a person's supposed reputation stop you from getting to know them for yourself. Though Montaigne and Austen were able to capture the outline of their thoughts we once again see that we can only make broad assumptions because we will never know the fine details of their introspection.

David Foster Wallace once wrote that, 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.” After reading Montaigne’s work I believe this to be true because even though he gives several examples as to what he is trying to explain, I will never be able to know his entire thought process. The same goes for Jane Austen, even though she provided us with an entire novel to give us a window into her mind we will never know the full extent of her contemplation because the mind is simply too “huge” and complex. Yet through their use of themes, educated diction and syntax, and use of literary tools they were both ultimately able to give us broad paint strokes of their thoughts. Although they used different mediums in order to portray these thoughts, the end result was still more or less the same.