Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Moviegoer, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Value Systems
Women, Love, and Sex
Modern Life and the Search for Meaning
Loss, Suffering, and Death
Summary
Analysis
It’s the last weekend of Carnival before Mardi Gras, and that means business is slow for Binx. Again Binx dreamed vaguely of the war last night, and the fear from the dream clings to everything in his office—except for Sharon. Sharon is from Alabama and has worked for Binx for two weeks. Though Binx has hardly said anything to her, he can’t stop thinking of her. Binx finds her to be a sturdy, conventional Southern beauty, and her looks bring tears to his eyes.
Like Kate, whose grief spills over into everything else in her life, Binx finds that his fear from the war lingers in his life. Women provide a diversion from his feelings. So far, Binx’s attraction to Sharon appears no more substantive than his attraction to other women who’ve worked for him; she’s mostly a convenient distraction.
Themes
Binx talks to both Aunt Emily and Kate on the phone. Aunt Emily says that Kate has agreed to see Dr. Mink (Merle), and she gives Binx credit for Kate’s improved mood. To Binx, though, Kate sounds strained, as if she’s trying too hard to be ironically detached. Binx worries about her; he thinks Kate keeps trapping herself just when it seems she’s found a way forward. She has broken her engagement with Walter. She tells Binx it would be so much easier if her family just kicked her out, but when Binx asks her why she doesn’t just look for a job, she abruptly hangs up.
Binx understands Kate’s moods better than Aunt Emily does; indeed, he interprets her struggle more accurately than anyone. He sees that Kate is self-sabotaging, getting stuck in problems of her own making. For example, she seems to be trying to relive the freedom of her first broken engagement by dumping Walter, but she hasn’t found a sustainable path forward in life.
Themes
After that, Binx stares at Sharon, with whom he is in love. She is a good secretary, quick to learn. She comes from the country and lives in a rooming house; Binx drove past it one night. But Binx remains aloof, even though he feels dazed with desire when Sharon so much as brushes past him.
The superficiality of Binx’s attraction to Sharon contrasts with his deep familiarity with Kate. Sharon is someone to admire from afar, not to be known and cared for.
Themes
Sometimes Binx reads books at work, concealed behind a binder; today it’s Arabia Deserta. He used to avoid such books; until recently, he preferred “fundamental” books like War and Peace, A Study of History, and Einstein’s The Universe as I See It. Reading such books was an attempt to understand the universe from the outside. He felt like an Anyone living Anywhere, occasionally distracting himself from his reading by taking walks or seeing movies. He called this his “vertical search.” One night, after finishing a chemistry book, Binx felt that his search had basically concluded. He went out and saw It Happened One Night and enjoyed himself.
Binx is probably reading Doughty’s Travels in Arabia Deserta, an 1888 narrative of the author’s travels among the Bedouins. Binx used to prefer hefty classics and foundational historical and scientific textbooks—these were a way of making sense of the wider world, a huge task that sometimes required frivolous breaks. But now that Binx is satisfied with his understanding of how the wider world works, he’s left trying to understand his own place within it. In other words, he no longer wants to be an “Anyone”—hence reading more focused books about specific people, for insight into the search.
Themes
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Afterward, though, Binx realized that though he now understood the universe, he did not understand himself. For that reason he began his horizontal search. In this search, wandering became essential rather than a distraction. Nowadays he “[wanders] seriously” and reads for distraction.
In the horizontal search, wandering is no longer a distraction, but a form of research—the reverse of the process of the vertical search. Wandering is a way of looking for clues to where he fits in the universe.
Themes
Binx gets a call from a Mr. Sartalamaccia who’s interested in buying Binx’s inheritance, a worthless parcel of swampland, for $8,000. Instead of accepting the offer on the spot, Binx has an idea. He invites Sharon to accompany him to St. Bernard Parish in order to copy the land title for him. Sharon agrees, as long as she’s back by 7:30 that night. Binx grows sullen, disappointed that Sharon apparently has a date.
Binx’s dealings with women are self-involved as well as superficial—he assumes that Sharon is free for him to pursue (and will be receptive to the pursuit) and not dating anybody else.
Themes
