The Escape from Conformity

Throughout history, human beings have been struggling with their roles in

society, while also trying to build a better society for themselves. In “The Loss of the Creature,” Walker Percy expresses his concerns over people’s gradual loss of individuality, independence and creativity. Percy is an American Southern author whose work explores the relationship between people and the impacts that modern age has brought upon its people, while also demonstrating a unique combination of existential questioning, southern sensibility and deep catholic faith. He exclaims that people’s qualities are eliminated by the very society that they have created. Through the use of many rhetorical techniques, Percy is able to convey his ideas about this materialistic world and his methods to combat those societal influences to the readers.

At the beginning of the essay, Percy introduces his argument through

allusion to the discovery of the Grand Canyon. Percy argues that the amazement that Garcia Lopez de Cardenas received when he first discovered the Grand Canyon is set by the circumstance: “One crosses miles of desert, breaks through the mesquite, and there it is at one’s feet, [the Grand Canyon]” (402). The circumstance has already set Cardenas’ amazement at the sight, and Percy places the question of whether others can experience the same as Cardenas. Ironically, Percy himself has already answered the question,

Every explorer names his island Formosa, beautiful. To him it is beautiful because, being first, he has access to it and can see it for what it is. 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. (402)

To further develop his thesis, Percy compares the value of the Grand Canyon to “Banting’s discovery of insulin [which] can be transmitted to any number of diabetics” (402). The simile used to describe the value of the Grand Canyon portrays Percy’s mocking of the societal definition of value; both the sarcastic tone and diction illustrate Percy’s disagreement with the symbolic society.

Following his initial argument, Percy pictures a complete packaged Grand

Canyon, which “has been appropriated by the symbolic complex which has already been formed in the sightseer’s mind” (402). The value, as1 Percy declares, placed on the Grand Canyon by society is further divided to give every sightseer an equal share. Percy uses the motif, symbolic package, to describe the materialized Grand Canyon—“[the] thing is no longer the thing as it confronted the Spaniard; it is rather that which has already been formulated—by picture postcard, geography book, tourist folders, and the words Grand Canyon” (402). It is further elaborated that “the source of the sightseer’s pleasure undergoes a shift,” as it goes “from a progressive discovery of depths, patterns, colors, shadows, etc., [to the measurement of] his satisfaction by the degree to which the canyon conforms to the preformed complex” (Percy 403). Through repetition of the theme of symbolic packaging and societal control, Percy explains that individuals are only interested in measuring up to “the criterion of the performed symbolic complex” without any regards to their true sense of satisfaction (403). To make the matter worse, Percy argues, “[instead] of looking at it, [the sightseer] photographs it” (403). The action of photographing has eliminated the sightseer from taking a direct role in experiencing the Grand Canyon. For the sightseer, “there is no present; there is only the past of what has been formulated and seen and the future of what has been formulated and not seen” (Percy 403). The sightseer, therefore, has no real contact with the sight itself, but the societal package that is wrapped around it.

In his advice as to how to recover the Grand Canyon, how to escape from

the socially packaged sight, Percy exclaims that one can recover it “in any number of ways, all sharing in common the stratagem of avoiding the approved confrontation of the tour and the Park Service” (403). Percy then introduces the ways in which individuals can recover the Grand Canyon: “leaving the beaten track,” or go back “to the beaten track but at a level above it” (403). Overall, Percy encourages people to not follow any pre-set sightseeing or traveling, but to allow their spontaneity and personal nature to appreciate the art of objects. However, Percy acknowledges that it is hard for people to recover their enjoyment of the sight, because symbolic packaging is unavoidable. It will be genuine if people do not seek any confirmation in the process. To Percy, it is important to note that individuals should only enjoy their experience, without any regards for social approval, and that they should not want to “certify their experience” (407). If people are asking for certification, then it only means that they are asking for acceptable experiences according to the societal standards. In addition, Percy’s diction further reinforces the idea that people are too weighed down by the need of social approval that whatever they present to others requires an expert’s approval.

In the second part of the essay, Percy introduces another form of the

motif—symbolic packaging—classroom packaging as compared to sightseeing packaging. Percy approaches the matter through the presentation of a spontaneous interaction between an individual and his subject, just like between the sightseer and the Grand Canyon. To give it meaning, Percy argues that “[a] student who has the desire to get at a dogfish or a Shakespeare sonnet may have the greatest difficulty in salvaging the creature itself from the educational package in which it is presented” (410). To dig it further, the media through which the dogfish and the Shakespeare sonnet are presented also pose additional difficulty for students, as they have to get around it to discover the meaning of the piece. Percy remarks that students see themselves “as [consumers] receiving an experience-package,” a rather passive and forced experience (410). Everything that the students received is “rendered invisible by a shift of reality from concrete thing to theory” (Percy 411). Students, moreover, are given specific and detailed instructions as to how to dissect a dogfish, how to interpret a poem—leaving no room for their own imaginary and creativity. Similarly to the first part of the essay, Percy also advises the students to recover their limited learning experience: it can be accomplished by “avoiding the educator’s direct presentation of the object as a lesson to be learned and restoring access to sonnet and dogfish as beings to be known, reasserting the sovereignty of knower over known” (412). Further, Percy asserts,

It is only the hardiest and cleverest of students who can salvage the sonnet from this many-tissued package. It is only the rarest student who knows that the sonnet must be salvaged from the package. (410)

It is apparently very difficult for students to recover the original piece of art, just like sightseer and the Grand Canyon.

In the essay, “The Loss of the Creature,” Percy is able to demonstrate that

“the thing [that] is made available as an item of need-satisfaction…[operates] to remove the thing from the sovereignty of the knower” (414). Society has over-emphasized the materialistic and symbolic values of things; it leaves no space for people’s free will. Under the influence of such society, people have lost their sense of individuality, independence, and creativity. Therefore, a greater responsibility is placed on the shoulders of the educator: “to help the students come to himself not as a consumer of experience but as a sovereign individual” (Percy 415). Individuals should struggle and fight for themselves against the materialistic hands of the society, to bring about better changes to the society.

Works Cited

Percy, Walker. “The Loss of the Creature.” Making Sense: Essays on Art, Science,

and Culture. Eds. Bob Coleman, Rebecca Brittenham, Scott Campbell, Stephanie Girard. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. 420-415