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Chapter 1, Section 1
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
At Aunt Emily’s house, Binx is greeted by a Black servant, Mercer. Mercer originally worked for Binx’s grandfather. Binx always feels a little uneasy around Mercer and interprets Mercer’s attitude towards him as both submissive and somewhat condescending. As Emily’s butler, Mercer has changed a lot from his country days in Feliciana Parish, changing his speech to suit his higher position.
Binx’s discomfort around Mercer reflects an ambivalence about racial relations in his 1950s Southern context. Mercer’s long and changing history with the Bolling family shows how such matters could be deeply embedded in a family’s lifestyle and assumptions.
Themes
Binx admires his aunt’s beautiful living room, which is covered with old portraits and piles of periodicals and books, including The Life of the Buddha. (Aunt Emily says that she is “an Episcopalian by emotion, a Greek by nature, and a Buddhist by choice.”) Binx half-listens to Mercer’s chatting about current events while reflecting that, in recent years, Mercer has become blurry in his eyes. He sees Mercer as both devoted (as Aunt Emily believes) and underhanded (Binx knows Mercer gets kickbacks from other household employees). When Mercer doesn’t fit neatly into either of these categories, Binx isn’t sure what to make of him.
Binx’s family is well-off and cultured. Aunt Emily is well-read and has, in contrast to Binx, carefully chosen ideas about herself and her approach to life—all of which suggest a certain detachment from emotion. Binx feels most comfortable around people like Emily who are easily categorized. When, like Mercer, people seem to blur categories, Binx feels somewhat threatened—perhaps because they unsettle Binx’s self-perception, too.
Themes
While Mercer talks, Binx studies a photo on the mantel. It’s a picture of two elder Bolling brothers—Dr. Wills and Judge Anse—with Binx’s father standing in front. They are in Germany, a few years after the First World War. His father’s younger brother, Alex Bolling, is missing from the picture—he’d been killed in the Argonne. Binx’s own father had enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940 and gotten killed even before the United States joined the Second World War, in Crete.
Binx has a formidable family legacy to live up to. Notably, most of his forebears are already dead, so Binx also has to live up to an idealized legacy, not one he can observe and interpret for himself. In particular, the men in Binx’s family value war service and professional achievement. Though Binx has followed in their military footsteps, he doesn’t seem to share their initiative or distinction.
Themes
When Aunt Emily walks in, Binx welcomes the interruption. His aunt has been a significant force in Binx’s life. After his father’s death, Binx’s mother went back to work as a nurse, and Aunt Emily (who is really his great-aunt) offered to oversee Binx’s education. Aunt Emily had been a bit of a rebel—after working in a Chicago settlement house, she adopted more progressive political ideas and volunteered overseas as a Red Cross nurse. During that time, she met Jules Cutrer, a widower, and after getting married they settled down together in New Orleans. Even now, at 65, Aunt Emily remains formidable; her keenness of expression reminds Binx of a soldier’s look.
Aunt Emily has been a mother figure to Binx, which accounts for her more active role in Binx’s life than a great-aunt might usually play and the importance he places on her opinion. Aunt Emily is the kind of person who seems to have always known who she is and what she wanted—unlike Binx. (Her “soldier’s look” recalls her command to little Binx at the beginning of the book to just “act like a soldier” to cope with grief.) In this way, she is a foil to Binx, whose wandering and uncertainty suggest that he hasn’t yet found his place in this prominent family or in the world at large.
Themes
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Just as Binx had suspected, Aunt Emily calls him into her office for a talk. It soon becomes clear that the talk is about Kate. Aunt Emily shows him a carton of empty bottles which were found in Kate’s room. One of them reads “sodium pentobarbital.” Aunt Emily says she is sure that Kate will be fine, but that as Kate’s marriage to Walter gets closer, Kate is “nervous” and fearful of disaster. For the time being, Aunt Emily wants Binx to keep Kate from moping around the house and avoiding people. She tells Binx to take Kate to watch the parade, as a low-key way of being in public. Aunt Emily knows that Binx can make Kate laugh like nobody else can.
Sodium pentobarbital is a type of sedative, and the stockpile hints that Kate’s mental health struggles are more severe than anyone has suspected—or than anyone has been willing to admit. Aunt Emily seems unable to believe that Kate’s case is that urgent, or that it can’t be solved simply by keeping Kate occupied with laughter and parades. Aunt Emily’s attitude suggests a blind spot in the family’s ability to acknowledge suffering, as they place such value on achievement, devotion to duty, and fulfilling one’s role.
Themes
