FREE ESSAY ON MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Lillian Chang
Michel de Montaigne
The Essays
Purity:
The world is a place of chaos nowadays. At every turn of a corner, there is desolation
triggered from humanity's sidetracked views of what the world is about. With all this
deception and superficiality, pureness in the human soul seems almost non-existent.
Michel de Montaigne recognizes the essential need of this purity for the improvement of
society in his Essays. Although the main topics he is focusing own are his own nature,
own habits, and own opinions, he uses these personal vignettes to illustrate larger
truths about man and his behaviors, his strengths and weaknesses. He subtly forces us to
see the materialistic ideals that supposedly make us happy and dares us to see how it has
tainted our minds and souls. Through his work he sets out to encourage man in the careful
study of himself, in order to understand life and the world around him.
The meaning of purity in humans to Montaigne is expressed in his short note to the
reader, to live under the sweet liberty of Nature's primal laws (3). To have purity meant
to have simplicity, to live contently with what Mother Nature has given us and as little
artifice as possible. What does Montaigne mean by artifice? Artifice is the unnecessary
magnificence which drains away immediately from use or money (334). In On Coaches, we see
Montaigne's frustration with society's tendency to attempt to gain respect with deeds of
the purse-string rather than true deeds of virtue (338). He asserts that this type of
generosity doesn't have any real influence because of the tainted intentions behind it.
Montaigne urges us to see the limits of the mind that is shaped by shallowness and
materialistic possessions. 
He speaks with a harsh tone, and against the ides of a universe which flows on while we
are in it, how puny and stunted in the knowledge of the most inquisitive men (341),
trying to wake society out of he oblivion of artifice it has settled itself on to. In To
philosophize is to learn how to die he compares the span of human lives to the span of
mountains and rivers, as well as to insects whose lives lasts a single day. Carnal
aspects influence even the general fear of death humans' feel. I truly believe that what
frightens us more than death it self are those terrifying grimaces and preparation with
which we surround it (35). At times it seems as if he was writing in a state of frenzy
because of human's ignorance of the insignificance issues they deem to be significant
when compared to the powers of nature. His frustrations make him scold us in the place of
Mother Nature. Why do you complain of me or of Destiny?? Do we do you wrong? Should you
govern us or should we govern you? (35). He struggles to let us see that purity lies in
nature, and when we rid ourselves of materialistic bonds, our fear of death, which is a
duty of nature to give us, will also fade, setting us free. 
Montaigne begins his essay That we taste nothing pure with the statement The imbecility
of our condition is such that things cannot, in their natural simplicity and purity, fall
into our use. In where his sophisticated society fails however, Montaigne finds refuge in
the native people of Brazil. In On Cannibals, he shows a more precise example of what he
is proposing for his own society when he talks of pureness. He compares these natives,
which he finds so amazing and pure, to fruits wild when then are produced by Nature in
her ordinary course (82). He is hungry for knowledge at the society they live in, which
is the society he believes to be ideal, they are governed by the laws of nature (83). The
pure ignorance which they live, is what Montaigne urges his own society to have. To not
know the meaning of fear in battle. To have a simple set of morals that involves only the
necessity. He is able to defend these 'savages' whom practice cannibalism
Throughout his writing, he constantly uses examples and quotes from other readings to
give us a better view of the big picture. 
He makes a plea to mankind to think of their