Throughout the essay, Walker Percy tried to convey views regarding society and preconceived ideas. I understood the example of the discovery of the Grand Canyon to how people view it now. People have idealistic views of what something is going to be like or what they are going to experience from outside sources such as pictures or stories. However, if their expectations do not match exactly what they were told or had in mind they are let down. I thought Walker Percy did an excellent job of describing the situations and the imagery was excellent. I could picture the sightseer getting of the beaten track and the couple who observe the Indian dance. I think that the Walker Percy’s goal was to leave the reader questioning society and their own individual experiences.

However, as the essay went along I began to understand less of what Mr. Percy was trying to say. On page 474, paragraph three I did not understand what he was trying to elude to when discussing the expert and the surrender of sovereignty to take up the role of the consumer. Furthermore, at times the flow of the essay was difficult and It seemed like Percy was jumping from one thing to another and not giving a clear explanation of how the two things were related. For example,he discuss the need for the ethnologist and the loss of sovereignty. Then, in the next page, the second part of the essay Walker Percy describes a biology student. The vocabulary Walker chooses is also very advanced, and I found myself going to the vocabulary page or looking words up, in an attempt to understand the overall meaning of the passage.

I could see how this essay related to our discussion of cliche. I thought the essay as a whole was trying to say that society in general is very cliche. Our class defined a cliche as something that was predictable and typical. In the essay, Walker Percy used the couple driving down to Mexico searching for “it” as an example that we are always surrounded by the familiar (a cliche) and that we need to find something out of the ordinary. Also the Grand Canyon vacation is a very cliche family “road trip” on a greyhound bus thing to do. Lastly, I was more aware of the cliches located throughout the essay, for example on page 471 “he has other fish to fry”.