“The Loss of the Creature,” by Walker Percy examines how society “p reformulates” a way for individuals to experience specific events and how, through this “p reformulation,” the individual is no longer an individual but a consumer who consumes these ideas by the experts of these events. Thereby, the individual gives up his / her right to sovereignty of his / her own life experiences. One passage in Percy’s essay that gave me the opportunity to see something I had not see before is in his representation of the misguided tourists as the “overanxious mother.”Are they like Fabre, who gazed at the world about him with wonder, letting it be what it is; or are they not like the overanxious mother who sees her child as one performing, now doing badly, now doing well?” In this passage, Percy refers to a couple who on their journey stumble upon an Indian village. Do these tourists take this experience and make the best of what it is by discovering its unique beauty by themselves; or has the way in which they have been presented with a truly unique experience affected their overall experience? In this selection, Percy defines the difference between the individual and the consumer (those who consume what is laid out before them by the seller or expert).
The tourists are presented by Percy, not as those who “gaze at the world… letting it be what it is” but as the “overanxious mother” who worries that their child, the village, my fail them in not bringing to the tourist a unique experience, which is only certified a “true experience” by the expert ethnologist.
The Term Paper on Effects of Negative Life Experiences on Individuals
This is a review of literature that covers five studies on attachment. In each study it was concluded that negative life experiences could affect an individual and possibly change the attachment style they have with their parents from infancy. The four different attachment styles are Secure, Insecure-Avoidant, Insecure-Resistant, and Insecure-Disorganized. From the studies presented it was shown ...
This passage reminds me of myself and how I at certain times am similar to the “overanxious mother” who fears that at any moment my “child,” my father, will fail me. I have an image in my head of an “ideal father.” I gain this image of the ” ideal father” through standards set forth in television shows, movies, and books. When my father does not do what the “experts” explain a father should do for his daughter, for instance show some sort of affection towards his daughter, I become disappointed and sad. However, when my father shows affection towards me I am overjoyed. My expectations are at some instances met and at other instances unmet and therefore, like the misguided tourists, I become the “overanxious mother,” worried that I will never have the ideal father-daughter relationship with my father.
