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
On Fridays, there’s always a staff lunch for Jules Cutrer’s salesmen. When Binx stops by his uncle’s office to say hello, Jules gives Binx last-minute tickets to a conference in Chicago next week. He needs someone to attend, and he knows Binx doesn’t care about Carnival anyway. Binx hates the thought of Chicago. Uncle Jules could think the same thoughts in New Orleans or San Francisco. Binx can’t—the spirit of a place torments him. Jules tells Binx that in exchange for this favor, there will be something waiting for him downtown. Binx anticipates the end of his quiet life in Gentilly.
Uncle Jules’s offer bothers Binx on several fronts. Getting acquainted with a new place is a formidable challenge for him—unlike Jules, for whom all cities are the same, Binx feels compelled to master a place’s “spirit” before he can understand and inhabit the place. Also, Jules implies that doing this favor will bring Binx a promotion. While this would be good news to most, for Binx it signals the disruption of his search and the routines that shape it.
Themes
