Analyzing Walker Percy's 'Symbolic Complex'
Brandon Chong
Professor Stephen Elias
English 105
26 January 2015
Title
Walker Percy describes a “symbolic complex” as a pre conceived notion a person makes when it comes to a place or situation based on the fact that society has already influenced a person’s feelings before personal thoughts could be formulated. This taints a person’s viewpoint as the experience is greatly reduced as hopes or expectations are not met. These “symbolic complexes” plague everyday life as they strip people of their ability to make their own decisions without being swayed by an outside source and prevent people from having the feeling of curiosity of charting the unknown. Society is spoon-feeding us ideas about the world that people are being stripped of the …show more content…
Celebrities are seen through their public personas and the projects they are involved in. For instance, the rapper well known as Snoop Dogg has the persona as a man who occasionally indulges in the use of recreational drugs because of the songs he makes. Celebrities are generally seen as highly successful with highly eventful lives. These lives are publicized through tabloids or T.V. shows that exemplify the personal lives of these highly regarded icons. Through these glimpses at the lives of celebrities, people see small and likely manipulated fragments of these people’s lives and begin to form opinions about them without actually knowing the person. If you are lucky enough to actually see or meet this person in real life, your image of them has already been conceived and you begin to feel like they know the celebrity on a personal level. Connecting to the fact that society judges people on their appearances, when we see celebrities in ordinary settings, they stick out among the rest. Although the celebrity is a total stranger and no different from the other people, our imagination of them is retained from all the previous exposure of them from other impersonal sources. The lives of celebrities soon become another form of entertainment for the mass and the idea that we are invading the personal space of these people becomes nonexistent. These celebrities soon become characters in a story and not real
Professor Stephen Elias
English 105
26 January 2015
Title
Walker Percy describes a “symbolic complex” as a pre conceived notion a person makes when it comes to a place or situation based on the fact that society has already influenced a person’s feelings before personal thoughts could be formulated. This taints a person’s viewpoint as the experience is greatly reduced as hopes or expectations are not met. These “symbolic complexes” plague everyday life as they strip people of their ability to make their own decisions without being swayed by an outside source and prevent people from having the feeling of curiosity of charting the unknown. Society is spoon-feeding us ideas about the world that people are being stripped of the …show more content…
Celebrities are seen through their public personas and the projects they are involved in. For instance, the rapper well known as Snoop Dogg has the persona as a man who occasionally indulges in the use of recreational drugs because of the songs he makes. Celebrities are generally seen as highly successful with highly eventful lives. These lives are publicized through tabloids or T.V. shows that exemplify the personal lives of these highly regarded icons. Through these glimpses at the lives of celebrities, people see small and likely manipulated fragments of these people’s lives and begin to form opinions about them without actually knowing the person. If you are lucky enough to actually see or meet this person in real life, your image of them has already been conceived and you begin to feel like they know the celebrity on a personal level. Connecting to the fact that society judges people on their appearances, when we see celebrities in ordinary settings, they stick out among the rest. Although the celebrity is a total stranger and no different from the other people, our imagination of them is retained from all the previous exposure of them from other impersonal sources. The lives of celebrities soon become another form of entertainment for the mass and the idea that we are invading the personal space of these people becomes nonexistent. These celebrities soon become characters in a story and not real