At the end of Walker Percy’s novel, The Moviegoer, Binx decides to end his “search” and claims that, “as for my search, I have not the inclination to say much on the subject” which leaves the reader wondering what exactly made him stop his search for something more. Did he feel as if he had failed and would never find the answer to his search, or did something happen that made him feel as if his search was no longer necessary because he found what he was looking for? I believe that by the end of The Moviegoer, Binx has actually had some form of religious shift and has found God. I also believe that in the context of The Moviegoer, Binx has experienced two of the three stages of existence that Kierkegaard describes in his explanation of Christian Existentialism.
At the beginning, and throughout the bulk of the novel, Binx finds himself doing everything is his power to escape “everydayness” although he actually falls into it quite often, such as seeing the same people regularly and going to work daily. Before the novel begins, I feel like Binx is a man who is just typically normal and lives the everyday life like most others around him. When the book begins, he is becoming bored with that lifestyle and starts looking for something more, which leads me to believe that he is experiencing the first stage of Christian Existentialism, which is the aesthetic. He spends his days stuck in the mode of everydayness and often feels empty and can no longer stand it. This angst that Binx is experiencing shows that he is living in the aesthetic stage and has become overwhelmed and begins his search to move on from this phase of his life.
The second stage of existence is the ethical stage, which I do not believe Binx necessarily experiences in the way that Kierkegaard describes it. Binx is a man of his own rules and although he does not necessarily do horrible things or commit crimes, some of his actions show that he is not necessarily living up to a high moral standard. Binx is a selfish person and often has sexual encounters with women he could seemingly care less about. Trying to be good does not seem like something Binx really cares or thinks about.
The third stage of Kierkegaard’s list is the religious stage. Although the ending of the book is kind of ambiguous as to what actually happens with Binx, I believe that he experiences the religious stage and begins to have faith in God. The one person in Binx’s life that he often talked about religion with is Lonnie, who despite his confinement to a wheelchair is a very religious and faithful person. He helps Binx tremendously in his “search” and when Lonnie passes away, I think it becomes evident that Binx has actually accepted the existence of God. After Lonnie dies, the children ask Binx if Lonnie will be in a wheelchair or like them when he gets into Heaven. Binx responds to them by saying, “he’ll be like you”. Throughout the book, Binx is straightforward and honest with the reader, so by admitting that Lonnie will not be in a wheelchair in Heaven, shows that Binx is accepting that there is such thing as Heaven and God.
Looking at Kierkegaard’s stages of Existentialism after reading The Moviegoer helped me to make some stronger connections with parts of the novel that I had originally not found any meaning in. Binx is a character that I feel almost everyone could relate to in some form or fashion and I truly believe that his “search” came to an end because he found something much bigger than him or his problems-- God.
Hayley is definitely on to something when she discusses Binx conversation with the children in the car right before Lonnie's death. However, throughout the novel, Binx has not shown himself to be a reliable narrator. It is a common trait of his to tell people what they want to hear, so he doesn't have to deal with the consequences. He tells his aunt that he is going to help Kate, going to decide what to do with his life, and later that he is going to medical school. He tells Kate that he will marry her and take care of her. None of the things he promises are unprompted. He seems to cave in to others requests because he has no concrete ideals for himself. Perhaps Binx really does believe there is a heaven, but this still does not show the reader any profound change in his religious views. If he did in fact experience a change in his religious outlook, it seems he would be more open to share his new convictions. To dismiss his search seems to indicate that he has given up on whatever he was looking for. The "everydayness" that Binx has fallen in to at the end of the book suggests that he has dismissed his search entirely rather than concluded it. The wallflower way in which Binx lived his life, in and out of the search, seemed to make it impossible to establish any sort of memorable footprint. He seems vacant and insincere. After reading a whole book about his search his motives and beliefs are still unidentifiable, making him just another unidentifiable person in an unidentifiable place. A "nobody nowhere."
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