Stein: the same but different

We have discussed before in class citing Stein’s paradoxical phrases, especially the one in which she comments on how things are the same, but different. In chapter 6, Stein states,
“Another thing that interested us enormously was how different the camouflage of the French looked from the camouflage of the germans, and then once we came across some very very neat camouflage and it was american. The idea was the same but as after all it was different nationalities who did it the difference was inevitable” (187).
Stein comments on how the function of the camouflage was the same, but yet so different across the nationalities. She not only defamiliarizes the camouflage, but pulls in the ideas of nationalities we discussed in class. Stein groups people by countries, and it is no surprise that she always seems to end up speaking the most highly of the Americans.
In Stein’s lecture in Oxford, the idea of same but different surfaced again. A member of the audience jumped up to question Stein on that paradoxical statement she had incorporated in previous works. She explained it to him by juxtaposing the similar jumping up the member and his neighbor were both doing to ask questions to the differences between their personalities and respective questions (235). It is interesting that Stein made a conscious effort to address this statement, and give her Oxford audience and us an explanation.
As the paradox consistently appears in the novel, the theme same but different could possibly be applied to Stein’s overall message and being. Her autobiography is the same as traditional autobiographies in that it gives the story of a person’s life, but very different at the same time (i.e. her defamiliarization, autobiographical “I”, etc.). Pulling in our discussion of gaps yesterday, Stein could possibly be making a deeper statement about her relationship with Alice. She has the same (assumed) loving relationship as heterosexual couples, but it is an inherently different structure of a relationship as it is between two women. Possibly, Stein’s overarching notion of same but different is not only important to her story, but to what she tells us (and doesn’t tell us) about her life.