Slowly, over time, they fall in love with each other, and kate cancels. Binx and kate are supposed to marry and binx is supposed to go to medical school. The search for meaning was an important part of the novel. In kate s salacious comic books, men are different. In a sense it is a celebration of the hidden misfit.
Published in 1961, the moviegoer by walker percy is an existentialist novel about binx, a humdrum stockbroker who drifts through life going to movies and dating girls its notable for subverting a lot of tropes, and refuting desperately looking for a purpose in life this novel contains examples of. On the eve of his thirtieth birthday, he occupies himself dallying with his secretaries and going to movies, which provide him with the treasurable moments absent from his real life. But one fateful mardi gras, binx embarks on a quest a harebrained search for authenticity that outrages his family, endangers his fragile cousin, kate, and sends him reeling through the gaudy chaos of the french quarter. Binx is perhaps more subversive than most political radicals because he is outwardly a conformist, living a conventional life, observing the rituals of the middle class life and fulfilling societys expectations. Ultimately, binx breaks out of his own shell by having to face the far more desperate problems of his beautiful cousin, kate cutrer. I get the feeling not hes back to nearly his old life just married to kate now, and when his aunt questions him, he has no answers for her. Freedom and happiness in walker percys the moviegoer. Binxs mother clings to the everyday, and to traditional, unthinking faith, after losing her favorite son. In his widely celebrated novel, the moviegoer 1961, walker percy presents the intriguingly complex protagonist binx bolling in the week leading up to his thirtieth birthday on ash wednesday in new orleans. The search in walker percys the moviegoer the catholic. Throughout this week of mardi gras, binx is consumed by the search, which he describes as what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. The moviegoer by walker percy is a book that i have been aware of for years, ever since learning that terrence malick at one time wanted to adapt the book to film. At one time, walker percy was a literary superstar. To abandon the search means that something has changed within him.
The moviegoer tells the story of binx bolling, a young stockbroker in postwar new orleans. Binx bolling the protagonist of the novel, binx bolling is called binx by his cousin kate, jack by his mother and his halfsiblings, and rollo by an old army buddy. Binx boiling of the moviegoer is the first in a line. The consequences of binxs quest, on both himself and his unstable cousin kate, prove outrageous, absurd, moving, and indelible. But the hero binx bolling improves this idea with the search. More than that, it sketches binxs peculiar philosophy, and kate s equally strange orientation, and their eventual transposition. Theres a lot of wellwritten passages on movie watching, new orleans, binxs complicated family and his pursuit of each of the three secretaries hes. He has a number of nicknames, although as a character, he does not seem. The moviegoer summary and study guide supersummary.
Walker percy kate s desperate struggles to maintain her sanity force binx to relinquish his dreamworld. Shes afraid what binx thinks may mean danger to her and the children. An existentialist novel is keyed at the start by a few lines from kierkegaard the specific character of despair is precisely this. Binx regularly visits his aunt emily, who lives in the uptown section of the city with her husband, jules cutrer, and her stepdaughter, kate cutrer.
Search for library items search for lists search for contacts search for a library. Binx and kate and the various versions of me all getting. The moviegoer i think that binx has settled in his search for meaning. We still live within the mediated, alienated world of the. Please help me understand binxs journey in the moviegoer. Binx takes kate with him on a kind of escape trip to chicago, where she more or less returns to normal and binx more or less finds himself.
She feels stifled by the life that new orleans society forces her to lead. The fact that a number of different names exist for the man is consistent with the split selves binx reveals in. The novel begins on the wednesday before fat tuesday and ends on ash wednesday, the day after mardi gras, with the epilogue providing a subtle and. Analyzing the moviegoer with the aid of mapping several important locations and trips in the novel makes binxs desire to isolate himself much clearer. Walker percys the moviegoer excels at presenting new orleans at mardi gras from an aimless, skirtchaser whos about to turn 30. But one fateful mardi gras, binx embarks on a harebrained quest that outrages his family, endangers his fragile cousin kate, and sends him reeling through the chaos of new orleans french quarter. The novel begins on the wednesday before fat tuesday and ends on ash wednesday, the day after mardi gras, with the epilogue providing a subtle and implicit resolution of the novels action. Upon his return to new orleans, he marries kate, moves out of his isolation in gentilly to a traditional shotgun cottage, and goes to medical school. In an interview, percy once referred to binx as a victim of descartes. Please understand that i loved it, and clearly its really sticking with me, im just not sure i entirely got what happened to binx.
Binx bolling, the novels main character, is only an occasional moviegoer, both by the standards of postwar america when martin scorsese would see a movie a day and those of the present, when. Throughout this week of mardi gras, binx is consumed by the search, which he describes as what anyone would undertake if he were not. The decline of tradition in the southern united states, the problems of his family and his traumatic experiences in the korean war have left him alienated from his own life. One of the things i looked for in the moviegoer year after year was some clue to what happened to binx and kate. The family back in new orleans isnt too keen on the idea, believing that this flowering relationship will ultimately doom kate. Kate cutrer, binxs adoptive distant cousin, beautiful, gracious, genteel, and fragile. He wishes for a chance to find his true purpose in life. Kate and binx understand each other perfectly though, in a way that aunt emily does not. Buoyant yet powerful, the moviegoer is a poignant indictment of modern values, and an unforgettable story of a week that will change two lives forever.
Aunt emily supposes that binx is shellshocked from the war, that kate is shellshocked from the accident, and that once binx commits to a real job and kate commits to a new marriage, everything will settle down and everyone will straighten out. Wry and wrenching, rich in irony and romance, the moviegoer is a genuine american classic. Binx and kate both have equally strange orientations on society. In the epilogue of the moviegoer, binx concludes to the reader that he does not have much to say on the topic of his search.
We still live within the mediated, alienated world of the moviegoer. Binx is an avid and successful skirtchaser, but he really loves his stepcousin kate, a manic depressive. Jack binx boiling lives in new orleans, and his attempt to escape. The moviegoer is binx bolling, a young new orleans stockbroker who surveys the world with the detached gaze of a bourbon street dandy even as he yearns for a spiritual redemption he cannot bring himself to believe in. Throughout the novel he is going to movies and experiencing life in the very descriptive manner in which he does in an attempt to find meaning in life outside his own experiences.
The moviegoer by walker percy 1030 words 123 help me. Did percy intend some connection between binxs moviegoing and his unfortunate, cartesian heritage. Told entirely from the perspective of john bickerston binx bolling, who describes himself as a moviegoer living in new orleans, the moviegoer follows the life of binx during the final week of mardi gras during the late 1950s. Binx bollings evasion of new orleans in walker percys. Summary of the moviegoer the walker percy project ibiblio. Going back to binxs new orleans every year is, in fact, a little like going to a reunion. This study guide consists of approximately 39 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of the moviegoer. Binx and kate decide to watch the mardi gras parade together, in which they see walter and after which they attend a movie. What has prompted him to settle down with kate and embrace everydayness with quasireligious devotion. Binx, the protagonist is asked by his aunt to watch over his cousin kate, whos battling depression.
I really hope percy is one of those catholics i will meet in. Essay on the moviegoer by walker percy 1020 words bartleby. She serves in the story as the last truly good southern woman, one who had hoped to pass on her culture to binx, because kate is not mentally stable enough to be a worthy inheritor. With mardi gras in full swing, binx, along with his cousin kate, sets out to find his true purpose amid the excesses of the carnival that surrounds him. This character tends to disappoint his family which has placed high hopes on his shoulders. Binx rescues kate from her static life and the two take a train trip to chicago, as kate goes through some more ups and downs. In the end binx decides to give up his business as a bond dealer and go to medical school, and he and kate decide to marry. Binx and kate must then respond to lonnies unexpected death. Binx and kates sense of disorientation is existential, but it has a. Percy titles the novel, the moviegoer, referring to binxs propensity for.
Finder and maker reversed in the moviegoer walker percys novel the moviegoer chronicles a week in the life of stockbroker binx bolling, and his eventual marriage with his stepcousin kate cutrer. So says binx bolling, the ironical hero of walker percys novel the moviegoer. In confronting her problems, kate is always on the edge of despair leading. Binx, himself, has survived service in the korean conflict. The moviegoer major character analysis supersummary. The plan is for them to live a good, simple life, to walk abroad on a summer night and see a show and eat some. Binx bolling, the novels main character, is only an occasional moviegoer, both by the standards of postwar america when martin scorsese would see a movie a day and those of the present, when many of us spend most of our time looking at one screen or another. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Binx and kate s sense of disorientation is existential, but it has a. Binx seems resigned to be with her, but not altogether unhappy. At the end of walker percys novel, the moviegoer, binx decides to end his search and claims that, as for my search, i have not the inclination to say much on the subject which leaves the reader wondering what exactly made him stop his search for something more. As the novel progresses, binxs instability becomes more and more apparent, but somehow, he and kate find a kind of comfort and safety in one another that the rest of their family finds difficult to understand. Walker percys 1961 classic, the moviegoer, examines the issues of malaise and alienation within americas prosperous society.
What especially struck me this time is how entirely the novel consists in binx bollings voice the moviegoer is a kind of jazz riff, for meditative voice instead of saxophone. Featuring an afterword by paul elie, this new edition of the moviegoer cements walker percys place as a giant of american literature. My childish, unhealthy, joyous obsession with the moviegoer. Subsequently, binx takes a trip to chicago with kate. The book tells us that a life spent seeking happiness is. For binx, the woman is his cousin through marriage, kate cutrer, a suicidal disaffected young girl. Throughout it, he consistently tries to escape falling into a trap of malaise. But unlike barnes, binx, living in the middle of the twentieth century, must suffer not just from his war memories, but from the constant reminder that the war is never endingthe threat of an atomic bomb. Set in the postkorean war 1950s, it centers around binx bolling, a young war veteran turned stockbroker, and his search for authenticity. Structurally, the novel concentrates on the events of only a few days, but binxs narrative. Rereading the moviegoer was a revelation to me, as rereading usually is.
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