The Moviegoer By Walker Percy Essay -- essays research papers

In Walker Percy’s story The Moviegoer, Binx Bolling, a Stockbroker on the verge of turning thirty is on a quest. Set in 1960 New Orleans during Mardi Gras Binx, an upper class southern gentleman sets out to find out about himself. Answer questions that have tugged at his soul. Questions about despair, everydayness, religion and romance. Binx is stuck in a quagmire. He must break out from this cloak of ennui and find the essence of being. But how? How can people, a person with a soul and a world at their fingertips be so inept at finding what makes them alive. Can it be found in religion or on the arm of a southern beauty? Maybe it can be found in the surrealism of a movie, or the excitement of making money. What if an answer is found? Will it frighten a person back to their everydayness? Some of these question are sound, others may be just thoughts in the authors mind, but they are questions that Binx must find out about. The following will talk about the idea of despair & everydayness and if others think about searching the way Binx Bol ling does. Binx is deathly afraid of being pulled into everydayness. That is to say that he does not want to fall into the trap of a daily, weekly of life long rut. He does not want to settle for just living just an existence. He wants to be noticed, to have the ability of excitement on a daily routine. To work hard and start a family and fight for what he thinks is a grand life. Only to realize years later that such a routine was estab...