Nawab Vaqar
ENG 102
Professor. Chocos
14th February 2013
Confined Society
“The Loss of the Creature” written by Walker Percy is a very influential and
philosophical essay, which talks about the reality of human personality in the
most symbolical way possible.
Walker Percy himself was a philosophical and fictitious writer. However, the
charm in his work was that he was able to connect his meanings in such a way
that any reader would be able to understand the concept and the message
behind his mysterious writing. With a medical degree from Columbia University,
Percy had a tough time growing up after his father committed suicide when
Percy was only thirteen. His perspective of life gradually changed and his
philosophical meanings of life started to make a lot of sense, hence, his era
started.
In his essay “The Loss of the Creature” he tries to explain a totally different
meaning in such a symbolical and philosophical way. Talking about the Grand
Canyon in his essay is trying to talk about how people go to such places just to
tell the world that they HAVE been to such places but they never personally
experience the beauty of such places and they just take pictures and look at the
pictures like they do either way. Hence, Percy tries to explain this by giving an
example of the Grand Canyon and the “Beaten Track”.
In his essay there is a quote which I would like to explain: which was “Our
complex friend stands behind his fellow tourists at the bright angel lodge and
sees the canyon…most beaten track of all”; in this quote Percy talks about how
the tour guide takes the tourists to the Grand Canyon and describes them the
Grand Canyon as they follow the “Beaten Track”. It shows how the tourists
surrender to the tour guide and do what he says and see the Grand Canyon the
way he wants them to see and the tourists listen because the tour guide had
become the authority and the tourists followed what he said. Hence, Percy
expresses his philosophical and symbolical meanings through such words that a
common reader would never understand but only a reader who thinks outside
the box would understand the real meaning of his work.
When I read Percy’s work I did not understand at first either but as soon as I
stopped walking on the “Beaten Track” and started thinking outside the box, I
understood the real charm of his essay and I even was pretty surprised.
Therefore, I think many writers have greater meaning to their work but one may
only understand them once they think outside the box.