Montaigne/Austen Essay

There are many diverse and similar comparisons between Montaigne and Austen when it comes to comparing the two authors. The line, "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." by David Foster Wallace, definitely shows relation to Montaigne's work, but I wouldn't say that it always pertains to his work. Foster's quote explains how challenging it is for a person to explain what is on their mind because a person's thought process is so complex and cannot be described as a whole. There are times in Montaigne's work where he does get overwhelmed in his own thought process, but he is always able to get his message and themes out in each of his essays.

Both Austen and Montaigne do share some similarities as well as many differences. Some of the similarities that stood out to me as a reader were the relationships between people and both expressed strong feelings throughout one another's works. Though each of the author's opinions are very different from one another, they both do strongly express their opinions. Both Montaigne and Austen do a great job of portraying each of their different themes, even though Austen's seem to a bit more clear, Montaigne is still able to get his themes out even when his essays sometimes get confusing.

Though I was able to point out a few similarities that Montaigne and Austen shared, personally I notice more differences between the two. As I previously briefly stated, Montaigne's essays would tend to get confusing and all over the place for me as a reader, where as Austen was quite the opposite as his work was very straight forward with exemplified examples used throughout. Austen uses a very organized thought process where everything flows very smoothly from one event to the next unlike Montaigne who jumps around all over the place going in really no particular order.

I personally feel that it is notable to say that both Montaigne and Austen are two very different authors with two very different writing techniques and styles. I think that Montaigne and Foster hold much more of a connection between one another's works then that of Montaigne and Austen because their works support one another in many ways.