Rough Draft Due: April 12th. Decide ahead of time how you will share digital copies with your peers.
Final Draft Due: April 19th before midnight.
Length: 3-4 pages, double-spaced, no more than 1000 words, submitted via Canvas
Percentage of Grade: 15%
In “The Loss of the Creature,” Walker Percy argues that it’s almost impossible for us to achieve the authentic experience of something, to find “it,” because we are unable to see beyond the package in which the thing is presented to us. Of the tourist’s experience of the Grand Canyon he says:
Why is it almost impossible to gaze directly at the Grand Canyon under these [prepackaged] circumstances and see it for what it is as one picks up a strange object from one’s back yard and gazes directly at it? It is almost impossible because the Grand Canyon, the thing as it is, has been appropriated by the symbolic complex which has already been formed in the sightseer’s mind. Seeing the canyon under approved circumstances is seeing the symbolic complex head on. The thing is no longer the thing as it confronted the Spaniard [who “discovered” it]; it is rather that which has already been formulated by picture postcard, geography book, tourist folders, and the words Grand Canyon. As a result of this preformulation, the source of the sightseer’s pleasure undergoes a shift. Where the wonder and delight of the Spaniard arose from his penetration of the thing itself, from a progressive discovery of depths, patterns, colors, shadows, etc., now the sightseer measures his satisfaction by the degree to which the canyon conforms to the preformed complex. (566)
As his examples of the Shakespearean sonnet and the dogfish make clear, Percy’s ideas can easily be extended even to places and experiences closer to home than the Grand Canyon. Your assignment for Paper #1 is to test out his theories by looking at a similarly “packaged” place or experience.
Before you write, do the following:
From the list reviewed in class, choose one place that you’ll be visiting and observing on a “packaged” tour. (For additional tour options, visit Davis Wiki or the Sacramento News and Review.)
- Write down all of your preconceptions and ideas about the place you’ll be observing. Include in your notes information not only about what you imagine the place to be but also about where your ideas come from.
- Take a “packaged” tour of the place. After you’ve returned from the tour, write down as much as you can about what you saw, how you attempted to see it, how the presence and reactions of others influenced your experience, the degree to which you think you found “it” or were prevented from finding “it.” Reflect on how the tour guide’s presentation structured or mediated your experience of the place. If you’ve done a self-guided tour, be sure to analyze closely any audio text or written text you heard or received while on the tour. Ask yourself how that text functions as “packaging.”
(Warning: Do not try to rely on earlier experiences and memories of a place. You need to consider the place in the light of your reading of Percy’s essay and, therefore, to visit it now with his ideas of “packaged” places in mind.)
The Topic:
Now write an essay in response to the following two-part topic:
In light of your observations and experiences of the place you toured, analyze the extent to which Percy is right that we see the “symbolic complex” rather than the thing itself.
To the degree that you think Percy is right, explain how (or whether) you might go about “recovering the object,” specifically, the object of your packaged tour.
The most successful essays reflect a precise understanding of these directions, so please read the two parts over often and carefully to ensure that your essay responds to them completely and clearly. Make sure also that your essay supports claims with specific evidence (including shown actors engaged in action, and specific descriptions of settings, people, and perhaps objects). Finally, revise the essay thoroughly before submitting it for a grade.
