Loss of the Creature

Saviola De Mello

Loss of the Creature

-Walker Percy

Walker Percy, the author of The Loss of the Creature, saw the world in a very unique way. Throughout his essay he points out many examples of how one has lost an experience through various “symbolic complexes” and by the means of trying to achieve that experience. In my opinion, the essay is an exploration of the way the more or less objective reality of the individual is obscured in and ultimately lost to systems of education and classification and that through preconceived notions and the loss of sovereignty people loose the ability to have experiences.

“Every explorer names his island Formosa, beautiful. To him it is beautiful because, being first, he has access to it but to no one else is it ever as beautiful except the rare man who manages to recover it, who knows that it has to be recovered”.

– Walker Percy.

With this opening paragraph, Walker Percy concentrates the essence of an entire essay into two neat lines. But what does it mean? What does the title The Loss of the Creature mean? Walker Percy seems to ask throughout his essay how man can enrich his life, how he can truly, honestly enjoy and understand the surrounding world and all it has to offer. He begins with an example of the Grand Canyon, how no one can truly appreciate it as its discoverer. In this example a tourist has wanted to see the Grand Canyon all his life, finally gets his chance, and then unknowingly sees the canyon as compared to his expectations. Percy states that the tourist did not have the same experience as Cardenas, the original explorer that found the Grand Canyon. Percy is quick to identify those distractions from other tourists, nearby hotels, artificial fences, and other facets of modern day tourism had taken away, or diminished from the total experience of the canyon. He seems to believe throughout the example that there are some basic things that disallow men to fully appreciate the canyon;...