Congratulations on your admission to State College! I'm glad you made the decision to come here. State College has many exciting opportunities to offer its students. You also told me that you were enrolled in English Composition 101. One of the works of literature you will encounter in this course will be "The Loss of the Creature," by Walker Percy. For your preparation for the course, I can summarize and give you my explanation of "The Loss of the Creature". Throughout the essay, Percy tries to make the point that anyone with expectations or "packages" will not be able to fully accept and learn from every experience. “The Loss of the Creature” begins with the definition of beauty, which is a key point. throughout his essay. Then he gives the example of a family of tourists and their experience (through his eyes) at the Grand Canyon. He describes his theory of the seer and the discoverer; “Does a single tourist receive the value of P, or only a millionth part of the value P” (p. 1) The value P, being the experience and beauty in which that person collected. Following the tourists, a couple came across a quiet Mexican village. The couple really enjoyed this first experience, but couldn't wait to return with their ethnologist friend. When they returned with him, they were so absorbed in what his reaction would be; there was a total loss of sovereignty. Due to their differences in interest in the village, the couples' return trip was a waste. The second part of the essay includes a resident of the Falkland Islands who encounters a dead dogfish lying on the beach. Additionally, he explains that a student with a Shakespeare sonnet has no chance of being absorbed by a student due to the environment or classroom layout. Both students receive erroneous messages, on the one hand the biology student with his "magic wand" of a scalpel, and on the other the English student with his sonnet in his "multi-woven bundle". Both students are unaware of the actual experience they might be having, and the teacher might as well give the dogfish to the English student and the sonnet to the biology student because they will be able to explore and learn more in a different setting, and without the environment and expectations (p. 6).