FROM ALIENATION TO UNIFICATION IN WALKER PERCY'S THE MOVIEGOER
by Haydyn Jackson
Binx Bolling and Kate Cutrer both realize that a lifestyle focused on mass consumerism and conformity results in an unnatural mechanization of the self. For each of these characters, faith in mass media is impossible. Similarly, the elitists’ devotion to a “scientific calling” (55) as a male role, and a “stoic sort of gracefulness” (169) as a female role, also do not suffice. The two characters are separately left with only a sense of alienation and a quest to find deeper meaning in life. Through the course of The Moviegoer, Binx and Kate gravitate towards each other, where their alienated searches become unified, thus establishing a satisfaction for both.
In the 1960s a distinction existed between the role of a man and a woman. Men were earning the majority of college degrees and held higher status in the workplace. The Moviegoer is also set in the context of a mid-twentieth century scientific frontier, defined by advancements in physics and space exploration. Therefore, an ideal career for an upper-middle class man such as Binx would be in research, satisfying a scientific calling upon the male role. The novel is also set in a time when Feminism and Women’s Liberation movements had yet to flourish. Upper-middle class girls such as Kate were permitted a “studententage” – a little bit of political activism and “girlish socialism” in college – but social strictures of the female role denied a woman from pursuing a calling or sense of purpose. Therefore, the aforementioned stoic gracefulness illustrates the female role as one in which a woman is learned in classical discourses, yet elegantly refrains from getting her hands dirty with serious work. Mass media such as movies, advertisement, and radio programs broadcasting and “certifying” (63) an identity of the masses amplifies the pressure to conform to gender roles for Binx and Kate. Furthermore, these societal pressures invoke in Binx “malaise” (120) – an existential predicament of apathy – and a pendulum of hatred in Kate (46). Though manifested in different ways, both characters nonetheless reject a faith in mass media conformity and are left alienated, “outside the universe” (70), questing for a greater sense of purpose in life.
The novel begins by introducing Binx’s alienation. Aunt Emily informs Binx that his brother is dead and that he must “act like a soldier” (4). To act like a soldier in tragedies such as death and war, Binx must be strong, heroic, and unemotional, marking the beginning of his alienation and malaise. This is signified by his movie-going, where reality – in this case Binx’s lost sense of belonging – is experienced through and described by references to media: “The movie was about a man who lost his memory in an accident, and as a result, lost everything…He found himself a stranger in a strange city” (4). If Binx must be a soldier and remain detached, he can at least latch onto reality by certifying his own existence in the context of the mass media, “going through the newspaper files in search of some clue to his identity” (5). At the age of eight, Binx Bolling is left with an alienated search, which later amplifies once he serves as an actual solider in the Korean War (157). The only way for Binx to trump alienation is by means of mass media certification.
The pressure on Binx to conform to a scientific calling can be traced through his heroic Bolling predecessors. Judge Anse, “hard-eyed” and fearless, infamously upholds a duty to the law as Dr. Wills, a scientific genius, “developed a gut anastomosis still in use” (25); Alex Bolling died a hero’s death in war. Possibly to his disadvantage, Binx lived through the Korean War, was honorably discharged, and thus continues to exist, shell-shocked with the war sealed away inside of him and an expectation to be heroic in the Bolling way lying ahead. Aunt Emily is an enforcer of this social pressure to embrace a scientific calling by summoning him to address the “obligation to use [his] brain and make a contribution” (53). Jack Bolling, “smart-alecky” and “something of a dude” (25), indistinctly differs from his siblings. “He is, by every right, one of them,” (25) a war veteran with an interest in science (91), but Binx detects in his father’s ironical eyes an elusive character that exceeds a scientific male role. Binx states, “Any doing of my father…is in the nature of a clue in my search” (71). Therefore, his father Jack Bolling, as an exception from the pressure to conform to such a gender role, justifies Binx’s rejection of a scientific calling. He dismisses the idea of purpose established through research because a scientist may be “no more aware of the mystery which surrounds him than a fish is aware of the water it swims in” (52). It becomes apparent that Binx lacks a passion or drive to embrace a scientific calling.
Binx surrenders to consumerism, spinning along the coast in the company of interchangeable secretary girlfriends, in his distinguished MG, paid for with his comfortable, stockbroker income. For Binx, this novel means of certifying his identity is an attempt to trump the malaise that stems from a lack of purpose and an alienated self (120-1); he is aware of the superficiality of certification, but would rather assume an identity projected by the masses than confront his malaise (109). Thus, Binx’s search is hindered by this “everydayness of his own life” (13) as he becomes trapped in consumerism, nominal love affairs, and a desire to be certified.
As the novel develops, Binx confronts the impossibility of a life tranquilized by conformity, when he realizes that “the last ten years of [his] life take on the shadowy aspect of a sojourn between train rides” (184). Binx’s search is reawakened on the train ride to Chicago, when Kate “gives [him] a kiss, grabbing [him] under the coat like a waitress” (184). These events foreshadow unification as a resolution for Kate and Binx’s searches.
As Binx lacks a sense of purpose, Kate Cutrer suffers in that the female role bars her from perusing her passionate sense of purpose. As a young girl, Kate grew up under her father Jules Cutrer’s “everlasting dumb importuning of her just to be good [and] to mind the sisters,” pressuring her to conform to the female role of the era (45). Yet when Emily Bolling married Jules Cutrer, Kate was exposed to a possibility of perusing her passion:
[Kate’s] stepmother had taken her in charge and set her free. In the older woman, older than a mother and yet something of a sister, she found the blithest gayest fellow rebel and comrade. The world of books and music and art and ideas opened before her (45).
Kate’s sense of purpose was thus unleashed. “The soaring of the spirit beyond the narrow horizons of the parochial and into the lofty regions of Literature and Life” defines a stoic gracefulness that was permitted to upper-middle class women in the 1960s and approved of by Jules and Emily Cutrer (46). Yet when it became evident that Kate’s sense of purpose exceeded such stoic gracefulness, as she began to involve herself with “political conspiracy…[and] the local dirty necks of the bookshops” (46), this passion in her became an issue, as it surpassed the boundaries of the female role.
Again as the enforcer, Emily serves as a metaphor for societal pressures, as she attempts to coerce Kate into conformity by pressuring her to visit her psychiatrist, and to participate in Mardi Gras festivities, both institutions that emphasize conformity to social structures (27-9, 65-6). Despite such efforts, Kate is practically incapable of such conformity due to a deep-rooted fear of societal interactions (110-15). Feeling betrayed by her stepmother – who once encouraged self-actualization but later constricts it – Kate’s long history of alienation becomes amplified. Rather than being accompanied by malaise, as in the case with Binx Bolling, this alienation ignites a pendulum of hatred in Kate, which swings between her father’s “dumb way of inner faith and outer good spirits” (45) and her stepmother’s hypocritical pressure to conform. Kate is left with a life of “peeling plaster from the walls of the basement” (170), as she grapples with the dilemma of a passionate sense of purpose restricted by the female role (46).
What Kate realizes is that society, specifically gender roles, force people to sacrifice aspects of their individuality for the sake of social order, as in her own case where she is forced to sacrifice her sense of purpose because only men are assumed to have purpose. Any outlet would suffice Kate’s passion, as she discloses to Binx:
“I would have made a good solider…How simple it would be to fight. What a pleasant thing it must be to be among people who are afraid for the first time when you yourself for the first time in your life have a proper flesh-and-blood enemy to be afraid of…isn’t that the secret of heroes?” (58).
The only trouble is that Kate cannot be a solider or a hero because she is a woman, and therefore, society assumes that a female role would suit her – it assumes that Kate must be a stoic and graceful sort of thing, incapable of a soldier’s heroism and strength. Because Kate cannot fit into this role, society assumes something must be out of order; thus, psychiatric appointments are scheduled, and medications are prescribed. Kate succumbs to episodes of near hopelessness as she lashes out against her stepmother and subjects herself to drug overdose and alcoholism (172-3). Yet in these moments of disaster, Kate is the happiest (59, 176): she experiences a sensation of freedom and purpose that blossoms through the ruins of calamity. There is a signal of hope for Kate when she considers the possibility of Binx’s proposal in marriage (116, 178). This serves to predict the possibility of satisfaction for Binx and Kate through unification.
Unification as a development of a search is foreshadowed early in the novel: “as you get deeper into the search, you unify” (82). Furthermore, the prospect of a marriage between Kate and Binx is hinted at throughout. Kate seems to recognize before Binx that such unification may be a clue to satisfaction when she says to Binx, “It is possible, you know, that you are overlooking something, the most obvious thing of all. As you would not know it if you fell over it.” She follows this statement with a kiss on Binx’s mouth, and dilated “brown eyes gone to discs” (83); the two characters’ searches begin to align and unify as the novel unfolds.
Where Binx understands things to be meaningless, Kate interprets a possibility of purpose, such as serving as a soldier in war. Or traveling to Chicago, which seems like a weary task for Binx, yet Kate seizes the opportunity as a chance to escape – escape from the pressures and concerns of her family into a place of liberation, where she may be “an anyone who is anywhere” (190), away from the pressure to live up to a female role. Free from social demands, Kate finally realizes that she is a religious person (197), and that the only hope of unleashing her passionate sense of purpose is to find something to believe in. Near the end of the novel, Kate realizes that because she trusts Binx, and only Binx, she can believe in him; he could be her God. Binx could be so “because [he] is not religious. God is not religious. [He is] the unmoved mover” (197); unity begins to take its form. Furthermore, Binx finds meaning when he realizes that he may in fact have something to offer; a sense of stability for Kate and companionship for his half-siblings and Aunt Emily. The Moviegoer concludes with Kate and Binx married, Kate satisfied with her ability to believe in Binx, and Binx satisfied with his ability to provide for Kate.
The argument can be made that Binx and Kate are unified by a trust in each other throughout, and that their searches only end after drastic events take place (170-3, 219-27), though this point does not withstand the entirety of the novel. Various instances prove Kate’s lack of mistrust in Binx, such as when she irritably tells him, “You and I are not a pair of any sort” (47). Binx’s mistrust in Kate’s ability to succeed is hinted at, as well (46, 116). The possibly of a marriage crops up on more than one occasion, yet is rejected. Even at the climax of the novel when Binx and Kate are on the train to Chicago, the lack of a true trust and unification is indicated by an unsuccessful attempt at intercourse (198-201). Ultimately, enduring expressions of alienation from both characters signify that each still lack a sense of belonging that is not set to ease until Kate and Binx’s are unified by marriage and their searches are resolved (237).
Throughout The Moviegoer, the narrator Binx suffers from the pressures of social media to conform to a male role, as well as an inability to see a purpose in his own humanity. His cousin Kate suffers from pressures to conform to the female role, restricting her from embracing her passionate sense of purpose. Binx is alienated and tranquilized by conformity and Kate is alienated and haunted by conformity. As these two characters search to find a deeper meaning in life, they find in each other a trust that they cannot have in any other human being. They become unified by this trust, establishing a sense of belonging, as Kate relies on Binx as an outlet for her passion, and Binx relies on Kate to provide meaning in his life. The “honeysuckles [sprout] through the oil cans” (95) and growth stems from the ruins of despair. The conclusion resolves Kate and Binx’s alienated searches by the unification of their existences, as they realize a sense of purpose in each other, establishing satisfaction for both.
//ww
In the 1960s a distinction existed between the role of a man and a woman. Men were earning the majority of college degrees and held higher status in the workplace. The Moviegoer is also set in the context of a mid-twentieth century scientific frontier, defined by advancements in physics and space exploration. Therefore, an ideal career for an upper-middle class man such as Binx would be in research, satisfying a scientific calling upon the male role. The novel is also set in a time when Feminism and Women’s Liberation movements had yet to flourish. Upper-middle class girls such as Kate were permitted a “studententage” – a little bit of political activism and “girlish socialism” in college – but social strictures of the female role denied a woman from pursuing a calling or sense of purpose. Therefore, the aforementioned stoic gracefulness illustrates the female role as one in which a woman is learned in classical discourses, yet elegantly refrains from getting her hands dirty with serious work. Mass media such as movies, advertisement, and radio programs broadcasting and “certifying” (63) an identity of the masses amplifies the pressure to conform to gender roles for Binx and Kate. Furthermore, these societal pressures invoke in Binx “malaise” (120) – an existential predicament of apathy – and a pendulum of hatred in Kate (46). Though manifested in different ways, both characters nonetheless reject a faith in mass media conformity and are left alienated, “outside the universe” (70), questing for a greater sense of purpose in life.
The novel begins by introducing Binx’s alienation. Aunt Emily informs Binx that his brother is dead and that he must “act like a soldier” (4). To act like a soldier in tragedies such as death and war, Binx must be strong, heroic, and unemotional, marking the beginning of his alienation and malaise. This is signified by his movie-going, where reality – in this case Binx’s lost sense of belonging – is experienced through and described by references to media: “The movie was about a man who lost his memory in an accident, and as a result, lost everything…He found himself a stranger in a strange city” (4). If Binx must be a soldier and remain detached, he can at least latch onto reality by certifying his own existence in the context of the mass media, “going through the newspaper files in search of some clue to his identity” (5). At the age of eight, Binx Bolling is left with an alienated search, which later amplifies once he serves as an actual solider in the Korean War (157). The only way for Binx to trump alienation is by means of mass media certification.
The pressure on Binx to conform to a scientific calling can be traced through his heroic Bolling predecessors. Judge Anse, “hard-eyed” and fearless, infamously upholds a duty to the law as Dr. Wills, a scientific genius, “developed a gut anastomosis still in use” (25); Alex Bolling died a hero’s death in war. Possibly to his disadvantage, Binx lived through the Korean War, was honorably discharged, and thus continues to exist, shell-shocked with the war sealed away inside of him and an expectation to be heroic in the Bolling way lying ahead. Aunt Emily is an enforcer of this social pressure to embrace a scientific calling by summoning him to address the “obligation to use [his] brain and make a contribution” (53). Jack Bolling, “smart-alecky” and “something of a dude” (25), indistinctly differs from his siblings. “He is, by every right, one of them,” (25) a war veteran with an interest in science (91), but Binx detects in his father’s ironical eyes an elusive character that exceeds a scientific male role. Binx states, “Any doing of my father…is in the nature of a clue in my search” (71). Therefore, his father Jack Bolling, as an exception from the pressure to conform to such a gender role, justifies Binx’s rejection of a scientific calling. He dismisses the idea of purpose established through research because a scientist may be “no more aware of the mystery which surrounds him than a fish is aware of the water it swims in” (52). It becomes apparent that Binx lacks a passion or drive to embrace a scientific calling.
Binx surrenders to consumerism, spinning along the coast in the company of interchangeable secretary girlfriends, in his distinguished MG, paid for with his comfortable, stockbroker income. For Binx, this novel means of certifying his identity is an attempt to trump the malaise that stems from a lack of purpose and an alienated self (120-1); he is aware of the superficiality of certification, but would rather assume an identity projected by the masses than confront his malaise (109). Thus, Binx’s search is hindered by this “everydayness of his own life” (13) as he becomes trapped in consumerism, nominal love affairs, and a desire to be certified.
As the novel develops, Binx confronts the impossibility of a life tranquilized by conformity, when he realizes that “the last ten years of [his] life take on the shadowy aspect of a sojourn between train rides” (184). Binx’s search is reawakened on the train ride to Chicago, when Kate “gives [him] a kiss, grabbing [him] under the coat like a waitress” (184). These events foreshadow unification as a resolution for Kate and Binx’s searches.
As Binx lacks a sense of purpose, Kate Cutrer suffers in that the female role bars her from perusing her passionate sense of purpose. As a young girl, Kate grew up under her father Jules Cutrer’s “everlasting dumb importuning of her just to be good [and] to mind the sisters,” pressuring her to conform to the female role of the era (45). Yet when Emily Bolling married Jules Cutrer, Kate was exposed to a possibility of perusing her passion:
[Kate’s] stepmother had taken her in charge and set her free. In the older woman, older than a mother and yet something of a sister, she found the blithest gayest fellow rebel and comrade. The world of books and music and art and ideas opened before her (45).
Kate’s sense of purpose was thus unleashed. “The soaring of the spirit beyond the narrow horizons of the parochial and into the lofty regions of Literature and Life” defines a stoic gracefulness that was permitted to upper-middle class women in the 1960s and approved of by Jules and Emily Cutrer (46). Yet when it became evident that Kate’s sense of purpose exceeded such stoic gracefulness, as she began to involve herself with “political conspiracy…[and] the local dirty necks of the bookshops” (46), this passion in her became an issue, as it surpassed the boundaries of the female role.
Again as the enforcer, Emily serves as a metaphor for societal pressures, as she attempts to coerce Kate into conformity by pressuring her to visit her psychiatrist, and to participate in Mardi Gras festivities, both institutions that emphasize conformity to social structures (27-9, 65-6). Despite such efforts, Kate is practically incapable of such conformity due to a deep-rooted fear of societal interactions (110-15). Feeling betrayed by her stepmother – who once encouraged self-actualization but later constricts it – Kate’s long history of alienation becomes amplified. Rather than being accompanied by malaise, as in the case with Binx Bolling, this alienation ignites a pendulum of hatred in Kate, which swings between her father’s “dumb way of inner faith and outer good spirits” (45) and her stepmother’s hypocritical pressure to conform. Kate is left with a life of “peeling plaster from the walls of the basement” (170), as she grapples with the dilemma of a passionate sense of purpose restricted by the female role (46).
What Kate realizes is that society, specifically gender roles, force people to sacrifice aspects of their individuality for the sake of social order, as in her own case where she is forced to sacrifice her sense of purpose because only men are assumed to have purpose. Any outlet would suffice Kate’s passion, as she discloses to Binx:
“I would have made a good solider…How simple it would be to fight. What a pleasant thing it must be to be among people who are afraid for the first time when you yourself for the first time in your life have a proper flesh-and-blood enemy to be afraid of…isn’t that the secret of heroes?” (58).
The only trouble is that Kate cannot be a solider or a hero because she is a woman, and therefore, society assumes that a female role would suit her – it assumes that Kate must be a stoic and graceful sort of thing, incapable of a soldier’s heroism and strength. Because Kate cannot fit into this role, society assumes something must be out of order; thus, psychiatric appointments are scheduled, and medications are prescribed. Kate succumbs to episodes of near hopelessness as she lashes out against her stepmother and subjects herself to drug overdose and alcoholism (172-3). Yet in these moments of disaster, Kate is the happiest (59, 176): she experiences a sensation of freedom and purpose that blossoms through the ruins of calamity. There is a signal of hope for Kate when she considers the possibility of Binx’s proposal in marriage (116, 178). This serves to predict the possibility of satisfaction for Binx and Kate through unification.
Unification as a development of a search is foreshadowed early in the novel: “as you get deeper into the search, you unify” (82). Furthermore, the prospect of a marriage between Kate and Binx is hinted at throughout. Kate seems to recognize before Binx that such unification may be a clue to satisfaction when she says to Binx, “It is possible, you know, that you are overlooking something, the most obvious thing of all. As you would not know it if you fell over it.” She follows this statement with a kiss on Binx’s mouth, and dilated “brown eyes gone to discs” (83); the two characters’ searches begin to align and unify as the novel unfolds.
Where Binx understands things to be meaningless, Kate interprets a possibility of purpose, such as serving as a soldier in war. Or traveling to Chicago, which seems like a weary task for Binx, yet Kate seizes the opportunity as a chance to escape – escape from the pressures and concerns of her family into a place of liberation, where she may be “an anyone who is anywhere” (190), away from the pressure to live up to a female role. Free from social demands, Kate finally realizes that she is a religious person (197), and that the only hope of unleashing her passionate sense of purpose is to find something to believe in. Near the end of the novel, Kate realizes that because she trusts Binx, and only Binx, she can believe in him; he could be her God. Binx could be so “because [he] is not religious. God is not religious. [He is] the unmoved mover” (197); unity begins to take its form. Furthermore, Binx finds meaning when he realizes that he may in fact have something to offer; a sense of stability for Kate and companionship for his half-siblings and Aunt Emily. The Moviegoer concludes with Kate and Binx married, Kate satisfied with her ability to believe in Binx, and Binx satisfied with his ability to provide for Kate.
The argument can be made that Binx and Kate are unified by a trust in each other throughout, and that their searches only end after drastic events take place (170-3, 219-27), though this point does not withstand the entirety of the novel. Various instances prove Kate’s lack of mistrust in Binx, such as when she irritably tells him, “You and I are not a pair of any sort” (47). Binx’s mistrust in Kate’s ability to succeed is hinted at, as well (46, 116). The possibly of a marriage crops up on more than one occasion, yet is rejected. Even at the climax of the novel when Binx and Kate are on the train to Chicago, the lack of a true trust and unification is indicated by an unsuccessful attempt at intercourse (198-201). Ultimately, enduring expressions of alienation from both characters signify that each still lack a sense of belonging that is not set to ease until Kate and Binx’s are unified by marriage and their searches are resolved (237).
Throughout The Moviegoer, the narrator Binx suffers from the pressures of social media to conform to a male role, as well as an inability to see a purpose in his own humanity. His cousin Kate suffers from pressures to conform to the female role, restricting her from embracing her passionate sense of purpose. Binx is alienated and tranquilized by conformity and Kate is alienated and haunted by conformity. As these two characters search to find a deeper meaning in life, they find in each other a trust that they cannot have in any other human being. They become unified by this trust, establishing a sense of belonging, as Kate relies on Binx as an outlet for her passion, and Binx relies on Kate to provide meaning in his life. The “honeysuckles [sprout] through the oil cans” (95) and growth stems from the ruins of despair. The conclusion resolves Kate and Binx’s alienated searches by the unification of their existences, as they realize a sense of purpose in each other, establishing satisfaction for both.
//ww