The Search

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

The “search” for Binx is his way of life. I think that this is his way of coping with the world and the everydayness of it. I have the inclination to say that on some level Binx was aware but also unaware of the fact that he was just like everyone else in the world. I also think that for Binx maybe he falls back into that saying were if you lie about something so much you actually start believing it. For Binx as long as he was aware of his “search” he was content with the way things were in his life. This was mostly an internal battle more than a worldly battle for him. He convinced himself that he was onto something and anytime that idea was challenged in his mind…well there he went again on the “search”. I do think that Binx found something in life as to his “search” because he did finally settle down with Kate and made the decision to go to school to become a doctor (both are positions of helping and thinking about others). Maybe he realizes to some degree that he has moved forward in life and has others to consider and gives up on his “search” altogether. He realizes near the end what it is that he wants more… desire. “Nothing remains but desire, and desire comes howling down Elysian Fields like a mistral. My search has been abandoned.” (228)  Or when he says “now in the thirty–first year of my dark pilgrimage on this earth and knowing less than I ever knew before” that he has realized all this search has answered nothing and left but more to be questioned. (228) Therefore why not abounded the “search” and hop on the first train to a different everydayness? At the end when he says “as for my search, I have not the inclination to say much on the subject” I think is because he knows that he has found something but he might not be able to recall exactly what it is or even maybe he isn’t fully aware of it. (237) Or possibly that day he did in fact abounded the search and didn’t much think of since. Kind of like when you make a life changing decision you say now if I do this I won’t look back and you really mean it.

For the majority of the book Binx is in the aesthetic stage but by the very end of the book he has moved into the ethical stage. According to Kierkegaard the ethical stage is “making a commitment to one particular role, in relationship to persons and life” which I saw this transition in the book a little bit with the way Binx really starts to care about Kate and from where he leaves off and picks up in the epilogue he definitely has made huge progress in that direction. I can’t say how much into one or the other he might be or if he is all the way into the ethical stage but he is there. It is doubtful that Binx will move into the religious stage considering he leaves of on “it is impossible to say why he is here (talking about the black man going to church on Ash Wednesday)…Is it because he believes that God himself is present here at the corner of Elysian Fields and Bons Enfnats? Or is he here for both reasons: through some dim dazzling trick of grace, coming for the one and receiving the other as God’s own importunate bonus?...It is impossible to say.” (235) The last line implies more to Binx than the man I think.