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Walker Percy The Loss Of Creature Summary

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The Grand Canyon is a remarkably interesting and beautiful place, as Walker Percy refers to in his essay “The Loss of Creature”. How can sightseers hold the same “value P” if they possess “the symbolic complex which has already been formed in the sightseer’s mind” (Percy1)? In his essay, Percy discusses his theory that humans aren’t getting the full value of life because they live off of preconceptions and expectations. Percy provides the reader with a number of examples to help illustrate his point in which he believes to be “The Loss of Creature”. The descriptions of the couple on vacation in Mexico and the difference between the Falkland Islander and the student at Scarsdale High School are two of his more interesting examples. He divides his essay into two parts that of the tourists and students, explaining how humans are consumers that need to come to a more logical conclusion of experience, illustrating that their ways of interpretation need to be changed. An American couple travel to Mexico in hopes of finding “it” in order to return home. Percy gives this example as a way to refer to the development of the “symbolic complex” in society. The couple are tourists with preconceived notions on what to expect and what to experience during their travels. Whereas, if their expectations aren’t fulfilled, they are let down and most likely won’t return to Mexico. “Their hope …show more content…

The two most stimulating examples were those of the couple in Mexico, and the dogfish and sonnet that helped illustrate Percy’s theories of the “symbolic package” and the “educational package”. He explains that humans need to overcome loss and struggle of the passive consumer to transform into a society of great individuality. If society can overcome this loss and struggle, the idea of “The Loss of Creature” will be no

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In the 2013 online article, “The Chris McCandless Obsession Problem”, author Diana Saverin describes the Alaskan wilderness travel phenomenon along with attempting to uncover the ‘McCandless Pilgrims’ “root of motivation. Sparked by the release of both Jon Krakauer’s and Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild”, numerous individuals pack their backpacks and eagerly step into their (sometimes newly-bought) hiking shoes and tramp into the Alaskan Wild to pay homage to their hero Chris McCandless. Filled with personal anecdotes and interviews, Severin’s Outside article takes a new approach Into the Wild commentary by directing attention to the lives McCandless’s story affected indirectly rather than critiquing on McCandless himself. In response to what appears to be a huge amount of troubled McCandless-inspired tramping stories, Saverin provides an unbiased rationale as a attempt to explain why so many are “willing to risk injury, and even death, to..visit the last home of Alaska’s most famous adventure casualty”. Saverin begins her article with anecdote- telling the unfortunate experience of young lovers and adept adventure seekers, Ackerman and Gros.

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The events that occur on the trip make the narrator come to a realization that

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His experiences as a child in the car with no distractions influenced his mind to grow strong and healthy. As a child, he would draw on the fogged glass and count cows and telephone poles. He believes this helped him appreciate what he saw on long car trips instead of being preoccupied and completely missing those things. Being able to appreciate beautiful nature grows the visionary area of the mind, which is much needed, especially in children. Richard Louv’s rhetorical devices in his essay, Last Child in the Woods, efficiently get his points across.

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Within Ways of Reading, by Anthony Petrosky, there is an excerpt called the "Loss of the Creature", by Walker Percy. In Percy's excerpt, he writes about many different stories and examples that are all about different things. He talks of a man who takes a trip to France and his 'it' experience. Percy also uses many terms within his short excerpt. These terms include but do not exclude the 'Consumer' and the 'Expert and Planner'.

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In his passage from “Last Child in the Woods,” Richard Louv uses various rhetorical strategies in order to make his audience more supportive of his argument. The passage discusses the connection, or really the separation, between people and nature. On this subject, Louv argues the necessity for people to redevelop their connection with nature. His use of tone, anecdotes, rhetorical questions, and factual examples all help develop the pathos and logos of his piece.

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“The Loss of the Creature” is a strong essay written by Walker Percy who expresses his vision of the world by claiming how a prepackaged idea over something, can potentially create a different outlook of what the individual sees. This essay supports the idea that Percy presents with the “loss of sovereignty” and how we digressed as a changing economy. Percy presents many examples how one needs to be lost to encounter through different symbolic complexes. Percy believes people need a true experience to get rid of all the social biases one has already heard. The loss of sovereignty is another part of this essay which creates a symbolic complex.

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Likewise, he demonstrates his discomfort about society’s acceptance of lobster’s pain and dismissal of their essence. However, in order to understand Wallace’s real intention in the essay, it is necessary to know his perspective towards modern society. By reading the Incarnation of Burned Children, it is possible to relate the society issues displayed, with considering the Lobster issues. The inability of lobsters, or the child, to communicate their pain of our careless acts is what disturbs Wallace. Therefore, he displays different examples to persuade the readers that society’s morality is corrupted and that the whole industry of boiling lobsters alive is accepted under a false premise that some animals are not deserving of protection, or are not ‘highly developed’ to feel pain.

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By engaging with these pristine landscapes, we connect with the legacy of those who came before us and forge a lasting bond with nature itself. Pathos Rhetoric:

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In his 1995 essay “The Trouble with Wilderness,” William Cronon declares that “the time has come to rethink wilderness” (69). From the practice of agriculture to masculine frontier fantasies, Cronon argues that Americans have historically defined wilderness as an “island,” separate from their polluted urban industrial homes (69). He traces the idea of wilderness throughout American history, asserting that the idea of untouched, pristine wilderness is a harmful fantasy. By idealizing wilderness from a distance, he argues that people justify the destruction of less sublime landscapes and aggravate environmental conflict.

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Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness recounts the experiences Abbey has as a park ranger for the Arches National Monument in the 1950s. This autobiography—which is considered one of the most important works of nature writing—mixes activism, observation, and philosophy. From what began as Abbey’s notes kept while staying in the Arches National Monument, Abbey book explores the plants and animals who inhabit the National Park, the uniqueness of the Colorado River, and the relationship between people and their environment.

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Nevertheless, in this predicament, he discovers and assimilates to the island’s culture. When a series of bottles with messages wash up onto the shore, the castaway becomes engaged in evaluating the information they contain. In his categorization and evaluation of “knowledge” and “news”, the castaway desires to balance objectivity and personal posture. Knowledge, as referred to by the castaway, means knowledge sub specie aeternitatis. Percy defines sub specie aeternitatis as “knowledge which can be arrived at anywhere by anyone and at any time” (Percy 125).

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Many people who go into nature always see it as something beautiful and aesthetic, but they never see the other side to nature. Humankind’s connection with nature isn’t a real one. They always look at the bright side of nature but are blind to the true dark side of nature. JB MacKinnon’s article “False Idyll” (2012), reveals that nature is not just flowers in a field but can also be the survival of the fittest. He backs up his claim by talking about nature through anecdotes and expert’s research.

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Can you imagine being under the pressure to be a hero, or trust someone who failed you, or even pressuring yourself about being powerless? In the Percy Jackson series, the characters Percy, Nico di Angelo, and Hazel experience pressures that sometimes crumble their emotions and make them lose trust in themselves. These pressures change the book because they can make characters lose trust in themselves and lose battles. In conclusion, character views shape the series because of how they can change characters on the inside and outside.

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We should value nature and its animals much more (Becker, 1971). In today’s world we have what Becker calls a “power-saw mentality” (Becker, 1971, p. 114). Instead we’re greedy with what nature has to offer us. “Man takes what nature offers us, but usually only what he needs” (Becker, 1971, p. 114). There is a psychological difference in today’s world of what we enjoy out of nature (Becker, 1971).

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When McCandless graduated from college, he found the possibility to go away for a while, “He had fled the claustrophobic confines of his family” (Krakauer 55). McCandless could finally go away looking for a journey full of adventures, but he wasn’t going to five stars hotels or luxurious places. His journey was precarious and wild, that was exactly what he was looking for. Places that were difficult for someone to reach and loneliness was abundant, the only interaction was with nature and savage animals. Happiness engulfed McCandless when backpacking anywhere, it was his joy.

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