The first mentions of the words ‘Taj Mahal’ caused images of pure white marble against clear blue skies to spring to my mind. After a quick Google search of the building, I anticipated expected my trip to act as an eye opener portraying the beauty of the Taj Mahal as representative of the true love of Shah Jahan towards his wife Mumtaz. When I arrived, I was sorely mistaken. I was surrounded by clouds accompanying a light drizzle of rain, hundreds of people packed together, and street children forcing Taj Mahal knickknacks in my face, trying to earn a few rupees. Reading Walker Percy’s essay The Loss of the Creature, instantly reminded me of my experience at the Taj Mahal. I had envisioned a life changing experience, mainly because of all
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In a way, I was trying to live their experiences and see the astoundment of the Taj Mahal through their eyes. But because of the humid weather and crowded population, my experience did not live up to my envisionment. Percy explains that when people focus on “prepackaged notions” of what something should be, they lose the probability of a bona fide experience. Through The Loss of the Creature, Percy encourages readers to both recognize the package, and reject it.
People often try to make situations go as planned because they have a subconscious desire for it to be “authentic”. In The Loss of the Creature, Percy focused on travelers’ experiences with the Grand Canyon. Percy implies that people measure their satisfaction of experiencing the Canyon by comparing their experience with their preformed complex, or expectations, of what their experience should be. A person’s preformed complex is first aroused during their initial introduction to the Grand Canyon. From that point on, they slowly build an expectation of the experience based off of pictures, others’ recollections, and personal
In a way, I was trying to live their experiences and see the astoundment of the Taj Mahal through their eyes. But because of the humid weather and crowded population, my experience did not live up to my envisionment. Percy explains that when people focus on “prepackaged notions” of what something should be, they lose the probability of a bona fide experience. Through The Loss of the Creature, Percy encourages readers to both recognize the package, and reject it.
People often try to make situations go as planned because they have a subconscious desire for it to be “authentic”. In The Loss of the Creature, Percy focused on travelers’ experiences with the Grand Canyon. Percy implies that people measure their satisfaction of experiencing the Canyon by comparing their experience with their preformed complex, or expectations, of what their experience should be. A person’s preformed complex is first aroused during their initial introduction to the Grand Canyon. From that point on, they slowly build an expectation of the experience based off of pictures, others’ recollections, and personal