In society, there is this assumption that people ranging from any age falls squarely into only two categories: follower and leader, and that they will stay there without any question. In “The Loss of the Creature” by Walker Percy define this struggle between the follower and the leader or in Percy’s words “the consumer and the sovereign” and how one person can reverse their own follower’s mindset to be a sovereign. He uses examples of the Grand Canyon, Mexico, sonnets, and the dogfish to demonstrate the consumers’ loss of sovereignty, loss of critical thought, and loss of individuality; a loss of someone actions comes with the self-interest attitude of others. In order to reverse these learned attitudes, Percy’s propose that a consumer can …show more content…
The first example he uses is of the Grand Canyon and of all the tourist related activities over there and expectations that come with it. The author uses the Grand Canyon to point out the stark differences between a consumer and a sovereign as quoted with him saying “Seeing the canyon is made even more difficult by what the sightseer does when the moment arrives, when sovereign knower confronts the things to known. Instead of looking at it, he photographs it. There is no confrontation.” (473) A consumer naturally falls prey to the one dimensional constraints of the current environment of consumerism. In addition, consumer primarily thinks about the present day rather of the future or reflecting of the past. In contrast, a sovereign being experienced and more knowledgeable of the environment will result in them looking at the big picture. The current environment paints a stark divide between consumers and sovereign, but it’s with a motivated individual can one person experience the benefits of being a …show more content…
One personal example that I could think of is of my hometown: San Francisco. San Francisco has always been home to me in ways that are not directly aligned with the current trends of it. When I think of San Francisco, I think of it as the city by the bay whose skyline is cover in a mist of fog and where the inhabitants of this great city are a great mystery given that the people over there are of mixed origins. However, the current symbols and stereotypes of San Francisco are the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and hippies. San Francisco is a healthy diverse place that goes well beyond the current boundaries that people think of. The ideas of consumers and sovereign can be further emphasized with my viewpoint of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge and a tourist view of it. For me, I really don’t see anything special about it because it has been a recurring landmark throughout my young adult life and is a mode of transportation across the bay. Every time I cross it, I don’t take pictures every five seconds, instead, I might mention it to someone, not about the beauty of it, but of the traffic that it creates: pedestrian and car. In contrast, a tourist would drop everything they have just to have that right picture or moment because of a lack of awareness. There are added benefits of having a tourist spot in the city of added capital, but it creates an
I recently read a book called Monster by Walter Dean Myers, in which a sixteen year-old boy named Steve Harmon was arrested for being accused of shooting a drugstore owner, and watched a documentary titled Murder on a Sunday Morning about a fifteen year-old Brenton Butler being charged with murdering a woman at a motel. I found that the book and the documentary had many similarities and differences. I thought this because both cases are about a young African-American boy who is in custody for something that they did not do. Both police investigations didn't go thoroughly and just rushed through to arrest the boys immediately and are centered around a white defense attorney who tries to convince the jury that the male teen did not committed the crime by giving out evidence.
When one thinks of classic Americana, they reminisce about the 1970s and 1980s and the notion of the nostalgic past in terms of what is the classic American image. It was a time of economic prowess where the blue collar factory worker would work 9 to 5 and then go to the local bar with his coworkers. However, times have since changed. The industrial plants that once dominated the Great Lakes economic region has become a shell of its past to the point where it is now none as the Rust Belt as industry left and white collar jobs became the norm. Since this degradation has settled into this once industrial cities, many cities and companies have sought to rebrand themselves in order to build from their reputations in the past to appeal to the nostalgia felt today. One such case where these is a correlation between a company and city are that of Harley Davidson, founded 1904, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Both have sought to rebrand themselves to the public and consumer, with Milwaukee seeking to transformation its image into that of a young and vibrant and city while Harley targets a new clientele. It is this shift to Harley’s "cult branding" to attract new clients that parallels Milwaukee's attempts to integrate itself to a service sector economy based on touristic leisure and the consumption of
With a wish to forsake industrial living Edward Abby of Desert Solitaire, and Chris McCandless of Into the Wild, immerse themselves in wilderness. While rejecting notions of industrial life, their defection is not absolute. Despite McCandless’ stated wish to live off the land (Krakauer163), he delights in finding an industrial bus in the Alaskan wilderness for his base camp (Krakauer163). Likewise Abbey, from his comfortable trailer in the Utah desert, states he is there to “confront…the bare bones of existence” (6). Utilization of industry in their escape from it seems like a contradiction at first glance, but this conflict indicates that they are not rejecting industry, only separating themselves by the degrees necessary to accommodate what they want to experience. Abbey’s Industrial dependency accommodates his need to have a philosophical dialogue with nature without separating himself from it, while McCandless’ primitive approach accommodates his need for self-reliance. This separation by degrees allows rejection and usage to co-exist within their individual paradigms. The removal of absolutes allows both men to explore outside of defined parameters. Subscribing to neither total rejection of a notion, nor adherence to rigidly defined ideas, both men can incorporate evolving discoveries relative to their need without contradiction.
morals are acquired, and conformity to a standard of right is attained. In the novel The
The wild is a place to push yourself to the limit and take a look at who you truly are inside. “Wilderness areas have value as symbols of unselfishness” (Nash). Roderick Nash’s philosophy states that the wilderness gives people an opportunity to learn humility but they fight this because they do not have a true desire to be humble. Human-kind wants to give out the illusion that they are nature lovers when in reality, they are far from it. “When we go to designated wilderness we are, as the 1964 act says, "visitors" in someone else's home” (Nash). People do not like what they cannot control and nature is uncontrollable. Ecocentrism, the belief that nature is the most important element of life, is not widely accepted. The novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer depicts a young boy who goes on an exploration to teach himself the true concept of humility. Chris McCandless, the protagonist, does not place confidence in the universal ideology that human beings are the most significant species on the planet, anthropocentrism.
He is unable to understand why they can’t leave nature alone. His frustration stems from the fact that so much valuable land is being destroyed, to accommodate the ways of the lazy. It seems as though he believes that people who are unwilling to enjoy nature as is don’t deserve to experience it at all. He’s indirectly conveying the idea that humans who destroy nature are destroying themselves, as nature is only a mechanism that aids the society. In Desert Solitaire Abbey reminds the audience, of any age and year of the significance of the wild, enlightening and cautioning the human population into consciousness and liability through the use of isolation as material to ponder upon and presenting judgments to aid sheltering of the nature he
Creature or Monster? How does Shelley's presentation of the Creature and Frankenstein create sympathy or horror at different stages of the novel? Who is the real monster? The novel "Frankenstein" was written by Mary Shelley as a teenager during the 19th century.
During this essay written by Walker Percy, it is clear that his overall opinion of experiencing new things is in the eye of the beholder and/or the hands of those around them and their social status. Percy uses many examples in his writing including that of an explorer, tourist, and local all seeing things for the first time either literally or in a new different light. In this essay, I will play on both sides of regaining experiences, seeing things on a different level then before or the first time. Regaining experiences is a valid argument brought up by Percy as it is achievable. While criticizing each side of the argument, I will also answer questions as to the validity of Percy's argument, sovereignty, what is important in Percy's literature, and my own experiences that contradict my opinion now as well as others that support it. Regaining and experiencing new things includes taking what you expect and putting that aside while you soak up the true environment you are in. To accomplish a sovereign state of mind, you must let those around you influence you only in a way that helps you grasp/control the situation even farther.
In Walker Percy’s “The Loss of the Creature” he attempts to portray the idea that perspective can be skewed by another’s story, personal experience, and other factors that lead people to have these expectations of a sight or study that lessen the experience. He demonstrates this when he makes mention of the tourists at the Grand Canyon, and the Biology student getting compared to the Falkland Islander. The facts he presents are true, but Percy does not go into detail about individual cases leading to a generalized essay that does not show that each individual account is different, and not all expectations are changed from other information given to people will taint the learning environment or the experience, and because of this the points that are not mentioned as well as Percy’s thoughts will be explained and expanded on.
John Stuart Mill believes in a utilitarian society where people are seen as “things.” Moreover, in utilitarianism the focus of the goal is “forward-looking”, in looking at the consequences but not the ini...
Mark Twain once stated, “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus” (Brainy Quote). Despite the imaginative challenges children are faced with in reality, they are able to cope with the advantage of time and mental resilience. Stephen King in his essay, "My Creature from the Black Lagoon" from the Wake Tech English 111 Reader, compared the idea of imaginative strength in children and in that of adults to see who would better fit the horror genre audience. Stephen King recalls one particular time from his past that sends shivers down even the hardest of spines.
I think that Leopold is trying to say that in conservation someone will always loose out. For example man pollutes a river with trout in it, the trout die and there is a decline in trout population so the conservation commission feels to help trout populations get back to normal they will kill herons. This is better for the fisherman but not for the ornithologist. So it would appear, in short, that the rudimentary grades of outdoor recreation consume their resource-base: the higher grades, at least to a degree, create their own satisfactions with little or no attrition of land or life. It is the expansion of transport without a corresponding growth of perception that threatens us with qualitative bankruptcy of the recreational process.
He gives an example of a college student that found a red spider. This student, ironically, passes the Endangered Species Act and becomes powerful. This student rose from the bottom because of his “conservationists” beliefs. The example allows the writer to move into a mocking conclusion. He states that these power hungry men and women do not actually know best for the environment as much as property owners do. Just because they state that they are “ all for the environment”, it doesn’t mean that they know
Congratulations on being admitted to State College! I am glad that you have made your decision to come here. State College has numerous great opportunities to offer its students. You also told me that you are enrolled in English Composition 101. One of the pieces of literature you will encounter in this class will be "The Loss of the Creature", by Walker Percy. For your preparation to the class I can summarize and give you my explanation of "The Loss of the Creature". Throughout the essay Percy tries to get across how any person with expectations or "packages" will not be able to fully accept and learn from any experience.
When McCandless first embarked on his journey, he believed that he needed to get rid of all his material possessions to get the most out of life. For example, in one of his first journal entries, McCandless wrote that he was better off experiencing the wild without camera because memories and experiences gave life meaning. From a Platonic perspective, cameras can only capture a fraction of reality and pictures are simply representations of a real event. By refusing to bring a camera, McCandless made a powerful and Platonic statement about materialism. Although materialism can often obscure the human perception ...