Recovery Subjectivity and Subjugation Due

¶ … Recovery

Subjectivity and subjugation due to a host of mitigating factors is at the forefront of "The Loss of the Creature," an essay written by Walker Percy. Whereas a host of other essays dealing with this topic due so in a decidedly implicit manner, Percy alone bases this concept as the fundamental theme of his essay, utilizing terms that are widely academic in scope and focus. This statement, however, is not propounded to imply that in Annie Dillard's "Total Eclipse," Randy Shilts' "Talking Aids To Death," and in Gretel Ehrlich's "The Solace of Open Spaces" the authors do not sufficiently recover their own sense of subjectivity and the subjects of these written works. But they do so within a greater context which is primarily related to death and the grieving process. Percy alone deals with the subjugation of the individual and the loss of his subjectivity purely from a theoretical framework in which there are no other underlying purposes for his essay. To that end, a comparison to the recovery of the subject presented in these disparate works should begin with "The Loss of the Creature," before attempting to identify any similarities or differences expressed by Percy's recovery and that of the aforementioned authors.

The general premise of Percy's essay is that a myriad of systemized classifications, which begin with and are largely perpetuated by the educational system, have created an inherent loss of identity for the individual in virtually all aspects of his or her life. This statement holds true particularly in terms of perception, in which Percy notes that most people cannot even experience something through their own unique, proper lens, and that whatever experiences they undergo, they viscerally relate to them through the lens of someone else's point-of-view. The best way to recover the point-of-view of the subject, the author proposes, is to immerse him or herself within an experience so fully and from an angle that is so atypical that there is little choice but to experience it independently of other people's viewpoints. Percy believes that the subjective point-of-view can be regained by doing things "off of the beaten path," which may include literally going somewhere and doing things that one would ordinarily not do, or by throwing in some other form of surprises (such as educating biology students about literature, and educating literature students about biology). By doing so, individuals would be able to effectively do away with the harness of other people's viewpoints which govern the majority of their lives.

Furthermore, it should be noted that the application of this concept of Percy's, of straying from the beaten path of existence, is prevalent and practiced by nearly all of the authors of the other essays mentioned within this paper. This fact certainly holds true for Ehrlich, who purposefully moved to Wyoming, which some have labeled as one of the least populated states, to get away from an urban existence of overly similar familiarities. This experience is the basis for "The Solace of Open Spaces," in which she plunges into a world of natural life and hardship primarily to deal with the death of a lover. However, by immersing herself in an experience that is wholly foreign to her and her previous form of existence, she is able to gain the much needed solace she was looking for, while also recovering her sense of self and her subjective perspective with which to view the world from afresh.

This motif of escaping the literal, physical trappings of daily existence to enter into a new mind state in which to view one's self and regain one's subjectivity is evinced within Dillard's "Total Eclipse" as well. The author and her husband travel great lengths to view a total eclipse of the sun, and in doing so experience sensations -- such as the sudden, rapid overtaking of the cloud of darkness throughout the earth due to the eclipse that allows her, in hindsight, to gain a unique perspective on the totality of death and the infinite aspect of life's partner (death), which aids the author in dealing with the loss of her partner (her husband). Whether Dillard was aware of this fact or not, she certainly took Percy's advice and did something out of the ordinary in a way that allowed her to regain her point of subjectivity on a subject of immense importance to her -- her husband's death.