Not going to lie, but I put an immense amount of trust into other’s experiences and allow them to dictate my own. I have travelled to different places for the sole purpose of “reliving” another person’s experience only to be disappointed when I get there. The ideas expressed in Walker Percy’s, “The Loss of the Creature” parallel my adventures towards misfortune. As Percy Walker writes in his essay, “The thing as it is, has been appropriated by the symbolic complex which has already been formed in the sightseer’s mind” (Percy 472). Percy argues that having preconceived notions about places or ideas, creates a “symbolic complex” in our minds. I have always been told that Disney World Florida is “The most magical place in the world.” I …show more content…
Once they have been separated, it can be referred to as being an instance, which is “it.” He defines this term as an experience resulting in personal growth, as something being “authentic.” He refers the first “discovery” of the Grand Canyon by Garcia Lopez de Cardenas as authentic, so it seems the best way to discover “it” would be means through exploration.
Last Sunday, I went to the Museum of Fine Arts and walked through the marble corridors in pursuit of Percy’s “it.” I was accompanied by a friend who was in pursuit of taking candid photos. I came in with a set of expectations as Percy writes, “the sightseer measures his satisfaction by the degree to which the [museum] conforms to the preformed complex” (473). When I entered the museum, the quietude of the atmosphere caused me to become drowsy and I quickly looked for the café to drink coffee. Feeling energized, I wandered aimlessly for close to an hour, amazed by the museum’s architecture and rustic paintings displayed. However, being surrounded by great artistic pieces of history, I did not gain the sense of being enriched or enlightened. Due to the nature of the assignment, I was not nearly as interested and felt that I could have been lost in the moment if I had entered on my own free will. That was until I stumbled upon the “Showdown! Kuniyoshi vs. Kunisada” art
In art, there are qualities that speak louder than words. It expresses many different messages and emotions and each person has an experience different from the next. In this paper, I will be discussing two artworks I encountered. The piece is a good example of how people can encounter different experiences in one piece. I attended the Orlando Museum of Art a while back with family and overall enjoyed my experience. On my visit, I found the museum quite impressive and felt a deep connection with specific pieces.
The idea of what a monster is and how it pertains to modern day society has fascinated readers and writers for decades. Before taking this class, I was aware of what a monster is and the function it served in today’s society. Furthermore, after taking this class, I am now aware of what a monster truly is, and what really separates a monster from a regular person. The piece of text that I mainly chose to focus on and elaborate closely to demonstrate the aspects of a monster is appropriately named, Monster, by Walter Dean Myers. The reason I chose this piece of literature is because, Monster thoroughly elaborates what a monster is in todays society and how it functions in the modern day world. In this essay I will elaborate on
In his article “The Loss of The Creature,” Walker Percy presents the case that human or “creature’s” experiences are most often trivial because of our preconceived notions. Percy believes we can only truly enjoy these experiences if we leave the “beaten track.” Only then can we see the true beauty of the experience.
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,
One pleasant afternoon, my classmates and I decided to visit the Houston Museum of Fine Arts to begin on our museum assignment in world literature class. According to Houston Museum of Fine Art’s staff, MFAH considers as one of the largest museums in the nation and it contains many variety forms of art with more than several thousand years of unique history. Also, I have never been in a museum in a very long time especially as big as MFAH, and my experience about the museum was unique and pleasant. Although I have observed many great types and forms of art in the museum, there were few that interested me the most.
In today’s culture people are not individuals they are consumers and they have lost their ability to have their own experiences. In “The Loss of the Creature” by Walker Percy, he talks about why people have lost their sovereignty and how they can get it back. There are a lot of things that people can do differently and regain their individuality back from the consumer culture that they live in.
The book I chose is called Monster by Walter Dean Myers. This novel won the Coretta Scott King award , the Printz award , and was also a National Book Award Finalist. Monster is the name and thing that Steve considers himself as he has gotten in a bit of trouble. This novel took place in Harlem New York in mid year of 1997. Steve harmon was in a drug store while some of the people he has been seen around the neighborhood with stuck the place up and murdered the owner of the store in cold blood now he is on trial for Felony 1 murder and this is the story of his trail. Our lives compare to each others in many ways. There are thousands of inferences that could be made
A glaring irregularity in the steady stream of supporting statements Percy puts forth is the example of a tourist couple that gets lost in the mountains and ends up ”…in a tiny valley not even marked on the map. There they discover an Indian village.” At a glance, this is a perfect example of true discovery! It is everything that Percy wants the reader to have! But as the reader keeps reading, he quickly realizes that he has fallen into the same trap the aforementioned tourists fell into. “The couple know at once that this is ‘it’….Yet it is more likely that what happens is…a rather desperate impersonation…an actual loss of hope.” After the winded reader gets up from the height from which he just fell, he realizes that the couple, as Percy says, “…[Has] the experience in the bag.” Discovery itself is a tourist attraction. It is this example that indicates that there is no other way to regain sovereignty than through the individual’s own perception. No amount of literal discovery will create the subjective experience of discovery. This conjecture is verified when Percy later points out that the couple wants their expert friend to see the village “not to share their experience, but to certify their experience as genuine.” The couple wants to bag and tag their “discovery,” effectively
How would you feel to be put on trial for a crime you did not commit? In the book, Monster by Walter Dean Myers, this is the case for a sixteen-year-old Harlem boy named Steve Harmon. Steve is on trial for felony murder because he has been accused of being involved in being the lookout for a robbery that took place on December 22nd in an uptown convenience store that resulted in the shooting of Alguinaldo Nesbitt, the convenience store clerk. Steve Harmon is innocent for the reasoning’s of he does not know who Richard Evans is, the convenience store was not empty, and there was no signal.
In the essay “The Loss of the Creature”, Walker Percy highlights his observations on how people perceive the world. He argues that we have lost original, self-driven learning because people only measure their experiences based on other people’s expectations. He states how these preconceived expectations of our experiences give way to a symbolic complex. This complex is set by what people or “Layman” believe the experts have set. Therefore, their experience is only validated if people feel that they have met those criteria. He believes that people can only have a true experience if they forgo all those preconceived expectations and biases. Only then can people truly experience something at face value.
17. On my museum experience, I took it in like every other visit to the museum I have ever had: much like other children expressed wonder and amazement at a circus performance or sports game; I was awestruck and mesmerized by the colors, the atmosphere, and the same restrained joy that I felt evident in the eyes of all the other observers. My girlfriend and I made our way through the museum, blending in with crowds of other viewers to see Cezanne, Gauguin, Brueghel, O’Keefe and the like in the permanent collection, making time to go from one end of the spectrum to the other. But my heart has always had a soft spot for
Philosopher Arthur Danto, author of “The Artworld,” an artistic criticism, states that “to see something as art requires something that the eye cannot descry—an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld” (201). Artistic theory, according to Danto, requires the presence of a subject, style, rhetorical ellipses, and that of historical context. Danto is capable of developing this view on art with the aid of an imaginary character, Testadura. Testadura, however, makes mistakes, as well as corrections, about the objects before him.
While visiting the Capitol Square, I felt like I had stepped back into an ancient
Intrinsically intriguing as the artworks and themes are for many viewers, what lies with greater uniqueness is the visual context of art, as emphasized by Helena. Artworks, despite the era or time period, are always initially distinguished based on the surface; for example, what’s present and what’s going on. As I tour the Grohmann Museum with Helena, I was taught to look at the furthest distance in the portrait rather than the surface.
Positioned alongside Central Park within the heart of New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest and most influential art museums in the world. The Met houses an extensive collection of curated works that spans throughout various time periods and different cultures. The context of museums, especially one as influential as the Met, inherently predisposes its visitors to a set of understandings that subtly influence how they interpret and ultimately construct meanings about each individual object within a museum. By analyzing two separate works on exhibit at the Met, I will pose the argument that museums offer a unique expression of a world view that is dictated through every element of its construction.