Walker percy essay

Walker Percy’s interest in language recognizes the use of symbolic language to which plays a larger role in our consciousness. Percy uses the terms, dialectical movement, symbolic complex, and the “it” to support his idea of language, as I explained throughout this paper.

But the point Percy is making is that when people find themselves in extraordinary circumstances, they forget about their preconceived notions, and explore and experience things as if those things were newly being discovered by them for the first time. It is more intellectually exciting to explore and discover than it is to receive and reinterpret.

Percy uses an equation to describe the devaluation of an experience (making up some variable names that Percy omitted): V = P/n, where V is the value of an experience to an individual, P is the value of the experience to the first person who experienced it, and n is the total number of people who have experienced it. Notice that V = P when n = 1.

Walker Percy. Symbolic complex is seeing something as a whole and not experiencing it. Symbolic complex is seeing and believing something to be great and beautiful, but in all reality it’s not what it’s cracked up to be. A person’s perception on a specific event is very much associated with dialectical movement.