The essay, "The Lost of the Creature" written by Walker Percy is about the lost of sovereignty and buying into the symbolic complex. In order to explain these examples Percy explains a loss of sovereignty in this world, and how people try to make situations measure up to the symbolic complex. Percy states "when the sovereign knower confronts the thing to be known there is no confrontation at all" (Percy, 589). However, Percy also talks about recovery of these situations that have been lost, by avoiding the beaten path. Percy uses different types of stories, almost parables, to help the reader grasp the point.
The base point of this essay starts with the Grand Canyon and how only Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, the man who discovered it, sees it for what it is. He points out that the Grand Canyon was set up as a national park, so everyone could see it as Cardenas saw it, beautiful. Nonetheless, turning it into a National Park made it government property and exposed the land commercially. Since the canyon has now been exposed commercially, when the sightseer views the Canyon it isn't "the sovereign discovery of the thing before him; it is rather the measuring up of the thing to the criterion of the preformed symbolic complex" (Percy, 589). .
The sightseer does not look at the Canyon but rather photographs it, eliminating all confrontation. He states that "the present is surrendered to the past and the future" (Percy, 589) but this can be recovered by avoiding the beaten path. The complex person sees the canyon for what it is, they travel where there are no railed-in lookout points or tour guides. I don't think that photography eliminates confrontation; it helps take you back to that place when you need something to make you smile in the future.
The message of getting off the beaten path in the example of the Grand Canyon isn't a good one; I don't think that it isn't very realistic. I think that the external control organizes the people and allows them to enjoy places like the Grand Canyon.
