Analysis of the consumer’s experience in “The Loss of Creature” The Grand Canyon is quite the sight to behold, as Walker Percy states in “The Loss of the Creature,” but how can humans embrace their experience of the Grand Canyon if they possess “the symbolic complex which has already been formed in the sightseer’s mind”(1)? This complex which some might not even know they posses. Percy discusses his theory that humans are not getting the full value of life by unintentionally accepting their roles as a passive consumer, allowing them to be persuaded without knowing. He explains how humans have lost their sovereignty, but provides a number of solutions to try and help the individual remove this disastrous mindset. Percy explains this in two
…show more content…
He splits his thoughts into the tourists and students, intelligently deciphering how humans are simply consumers that need to come to a more realistic conclusion of experience, by changing their ways of interpretation.
With this discussion of consumers, Percy starts his story of an American tourist couple that is excited to be traveling to Mexico. He begins by relaying that they are “never without the sense of missing something” (2). Percy is referring to the beginning development of the “symbolic complex,” in which the couple, before even stepping foot in Mexico, already has preconceived notions about what they are to expect. If the expectations they have conceived are not completely fulfilled, then they will be disappointed. Percy epitomizes this presumed idea when he states “Their hope has something to do with their own role as tourists in a foreign country and the way in which they conceive …show more content…
They are anxious because they are worried that their expected experience will fail them, which leads them to seek for approval and validity for their experience. They go about seeking for this approval by telling their ethnologist friend that he should come back with them to the village, “filling the role of sightseer and the sight is living up to the prototype of sights” (4). Once they bring back the ethnologist and are seeking his approval, they do not pay any attention to the festival, but instead watch the reaction of the ethnologist looking for an approval of their experience. In doing this, Percy shows that the couple has now lost a piece of their sovereignty, as they keep telling themselves this is what you are looking for “Now you are really living” (4)! Their anxiety and approval seeking, makes them depend completely on what they think they should be experiencing rather than simply enjoying and taking in the experience without any biased
He splits his thoughts into the tourists and students, intelligently deciphering how humans are simply consumers that need to come to a more realistic conclusion of experience, by changing their ways of interpretation.
With this discussion of consumers, Percy starts his story of an American tourist couple that is excited to be traveling to Mexico. He begins by relaying that they are “never without the sense of missing something” (2). Percy is referring to the beginning development of the “symbolic complex,” in which the couple, before even stepping foot in Mexico, already has preconceived notions about what they are to expect. If the expectations they have conceived are not completely fulfilled, then they will be disappointed. Percy epitomizes this presumed idea when he states “Their hope has something to do with their own role as tourists in a foreign country and the way in which they conceive …show more content…
They are anxious because they are worried that their expected experience will fail them, which leads them to seek for approval and validity for their experience. They go about seeking for this approval by telling their ethnologist friend that he should come back with them to the village, “filling the role of sightseer and the sight is living up to the prototype of sights” (4). Once they bring back the ethnologist and are seeking his approval, they do not pay any attention to the festival, but instead watch the reaction of the ethnologist looking for an approval of their experience. In doing this, Percy shows that the couple has now lost a piece of their sovereignty, as they keep telling themselves this is what you are looking for “Now you are really living” (4)! Their anxiety and approval seeking, makes them depend completely on what they think they should be experiencing rather than simply enjoying and taking in the experience without any biased