The tourist sees the canyon through the lens that the expert has made available. Leaving the beaten track is the tourist attempt at recovering their sovereignty. It is important to note that common readers give up their sovereignty to the experts without knowing. Common readers lose their sovereignty without knowing because they passively read. They allow the expert to influence their thinking and their perspective. After the expert has secured their influence on the common reader, sovereignty is soon loss after. After the sovereignty is lost to the expert, the reader is now following what the expert wants the reader to know. The reader is blindly following the ideas of the expert.
As a common reader of Percy's essay, it is apparent that sovereignty is surrendered to the expert or in this case the writer Percy. Following the path laid out by Percy is how a common reader would approach the essay. Percy is formulating and placing his view of how the ideal tourist should be. As a common reader is reading the essay he or she is only understanding what Percy wants them to understand. His thoughts and his comprehension of life are placed into the reader's mind. The common reader will no longer think the same about tourist again because Percy's idea of a tourist is established in the reader's mind. The common reader will think he is reading the essay and formulating his own meaning but he is just interpreting what Percy has formulated to be the meaning. It is difficult to not be a common reader when reading Percy's essay. Percy's essay has many conflicting stories and it can be difficult to step back and intake what Percy really means by these stories. For example, when reading the stories about the tourists in the Grand Canyon, Percy describes many different types of tourist and many different approaches to go about seeing the Grand Canyon. Percy's does not construct a single meaning to all of the stories and he leaves the reader with many questions.