In his
story, "Good Old Neon", David Foster Wallace says, “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.” Jane Austen, author of Pride
and Prejudice supports this statement through her writing style while the Essays of Michel De Montaigne by Michel
De Montaigne somewhat contradicts them.
Even though Pride and Prejudice
and Essays of Michel De Montaigne
both have some things in common, both of them do not support Wallace’s saying.
In his quote, Wallace is saying that the
thoughts and opinions of someone are not represented in any of their works
because their minds are too complex to be put down into writing. In Essays of Michel De Montaigne, the
reader can read exactly what Montaigne thinks about a subject, like thumbs,
liars, memorization, sorrow, fear, and cowardice because his writing is done
through a first person point of view. Even though Montaigne’s thoughts are not
organized in a way that is easily followed, the reader can pinpoint his ideas
on a given subject.
In Pride
and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, the reader can only speculate what Austen
thinks about a subject. Even though her novel has an organized structure, her
thoughts are implied through the third person narration of the novel. Since Pride and Prejudice is a work of
fiction, Jane Austin has the ability to presents themes that the reader can
have an opinion on without stating her views directly. By writing this way, Austen
supports Wallace’s saying.
Even though both works do not support Wallace’s
statement, Austen and Montaigne have some similarities. The biggest similarity
between them is that they show similar messages. A message that both of them
portray is that “the profit of one man is the damage of another.” (Montaigne
Ch. XXI) In Pride and Prejudice this
is shown when Mr. Collins entailment leaves the Bennet women financially
unprotected once Mr. Bennet dies.
Another common massage is that “our mind hinders itself.” (Montaigne Ch.
XIV) This is showed in Pride and
Prejudice when Darcy’s “mind” (prejudice) prevents Elizabeth to accept his
proposal.
In the story “Good Old Neon”, David Foster
Wallace says that people cannot write down their thoughts and opinions because
their minds are too complex. However, The
Essays of Michel De Montaigne contradicts this because in his writing,
Montaigne states his opinions on diverse topics such as cowardice, thumbs,
liars, memorization, sorrow, and fear. On the other hand, Pride and Prejudice supports this because the author does not state
her opinion directly through the novel.
No comments:
Post a Comment