Comparitive essay between Percy and Du Bois

Walker Percy’s essay, “The Loss of the Creature” describes the experiences that each person goes through as either a genuine experience driven by own desires, or one that is already preconceived by experts. Percy believes that people can only learn from experiences that are driven by pure personal desire, and not experiences already preconceived by experts. Percy describes the “loss of sovereignty” as preconceived notions of an experience with the help of experts. W.…

…life is the “beaten track” that most follow. To Percy, I am “simple” because some of my experiences are influenced by experts, but to my parents I would not be considered “simple” because I am doing something that is not common in their lives. Going to college is out of the ordinary, just like the Negroes. There are so many situations that need to be taken into consideration before categorizing people into “simple and complex”.