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Chapter 1, Section 4
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
Binx chats with Aunt Emily while she plays Chopin on the piano. They talk about Binx’s mother, whom Emily has never really liked, thinking her beneath Binx’s father. When Binx’s father began practicing medicine in Feliciana Parish, he married the first nurse who walked through the door. His mother remarried after his father died and now lives on the Gulf Coast with her husband, a car dealer; they have six children, and Binx occasionally visits their bayou fishing camp.
Aunt Emily thinks she knows what’s best for everyone in the family; her antipathy for Binx’s mother accounts for her swiftness to take over Binx’s education. (His father’s quick marriage to an employee also suggests where Binx’s dating habits come from.) The divide in Binx’s family symbolizes the pull he feels between different value systems—the Bollings’ upper-class one and the Smith’s working-class religiosity—as will become clear.
Themes
As Binx studies the mantel photographs again, Aunt Emily observes that there are no longer any “Catos” in the world, only Jules, and family friend Sam Yerger. Binx doesn’t believe that either of these men is a “Cato.” The truth is that Aunt Emily sees what she wants to see in people, which even changes the way they see themselves.
Here, Emily refers to Cato, a Roman senator and Stoic philosopher of the first century B.C.E. Cato’s Stoicism appeals to Emily because of her belief in duty. Emily’s belief that her husband and friend are “Catos” shows that she sees people the way she chooses to see them. Binx is skeptical of Emily’s stoicism and her tendency to manipulative others’ views of themselves.
Themes
When a thunderstorm breaks, Aunt Emily and Binx stroll up and down on the promenade. Binx’s neck prickles when Aunt Emily says she’s had a brainstorm. Binx, she claims, has always had a mind for scientific research. Binx knows this isn’t actually true. His mind is average, but Aunt Emily thinks he’s smart because he is quiet and because his father was smart. Binx even attempted a summer research project in college, working on an experiment involving kidney stones in pigs.
Binx’s neck prickles when Aunt Emily is about to say something consequential for his future, such as when Scott died. (Though this conversation seems to reach an impasse, it will be consequential for Binx later.) Aunt Emily sees Binx as a copy of his father, but there’s little real evidence for this claim—Emily just selects details that align with her values and that reinforce her assumptions about Binx.
Themes
But over that summer, Binx constantly became distracted by the dust motes in the bright sunshine spilling across the lab. His lab mate, Harry, was unaffected by this wonder. As a scientist, Harry was content to focus on the problem at hand, not caring about his surroundings. Binx, on the other hand, couldn’t be like Harry, even if the project were a cure for cancer. He was much more interested in the greater mystery surrounding him.
Even before he embarked on his search, Binx was alert to details that other people miss. Harry could shut out the external world in order to focus on a specific problem. For Binx, however, the biggest “experiment” is the mystery of existence—something he’s incapable of shutting out, no matter what else is at stake.
Themes
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Contrary to Binx’s expectation, though, Aunt Emily doesn’t suggest that he go back into scientific research. Instead, she encourages him to go to medical school in the fall. He can even live in a cottage she’s fixed up on her property. Binx replies noncommittally. Aunt Emily asks Binx what he wants out of life—doesn’t he feel obligated to contribute something to the world? Binx doesn’t know what to say.
Aunt Emily is so confident in her vision of Binx that she has a plan worked out in order to ensure he doesn’t squander the potential she sees in him. But Binx doesn’t share Emily’s straightforward belief in duty and can’t commit to this plan. He has too many questions about the world to think of contributing something to it.
Themes
As they continue walking, Aunt Emily says that she no longer understands the world; the things her generation cherishes are no longer respected. Binx reflects that even though Aunt Emily’s world is falling apart, at least she understands its collapse. To her, the world is basically simple. The way she sees it, Binx just has to do his duty—go to medical school and spend his life serving others. Binx simply must remember his duty.
This scene recalls Binx’s boyhood walk with Aunt Emily after his brother Scott died. At the time, Aunt Emily told him he must simply act like a soldier. Similarly, she now reminds him that life is simply a matter of following his duty—that he needs to soldier on, so to speak. Binx feels that Aunt Emily sees the world in black and white, and he feels alienated by her expectations and worldview. For him, the world is more complicated.
Themes
Aunt Emily goes on, saying that she doesn’t understand the purpose of human existence, yet she believes with all her heart that a person must “do what little he can and do it as best he can.” Goodness doesn’t prevail in this life, yet a person must go down fighting anyway; to do anything else is less than human. Binx doesn’t understand what Aunt Emily is talking about.
Aunt Emily’s value system—her belief in duty above all—doesn’t require an understanding of why human life exists. In her view, people can’t know this, and they know that their efforts to do good will likely fail, but they must try anyway. Binx finds these beliefs unintelligible; “why” is all-important to him.
Themes
When Binx starts explaining his “search” in vague terms, Aunt Emily brightens. She thinks he means he’s embarking on a Wanderjahr, “something every man used to do.” Binx’s own father wandered Europe after college. When Binx finished college, he went straight to war. Aunt Emily thinks this is why Binx seems to have lost his love of science, books, and music. She reminds him how they used to spend all night talking about literature. Binx feels deflated by Aunt Emily’s reaction. He starts to remind her that she was the driver of those literary conversations, not him, but suddenly he’s too tired to continue. They sit down, and Aunt Emily makes Binx promise that, in one week’s time, on his 30th birthday, he will give her an answer about medical school. As Binx leaves, Aunt Emily hugs him and tells him he reminds her of his father.
Aunt Emily thinks Binx’s search is just a youthful escapade, wandering around before taking up life’s more serious duties. Because Binx spent his youth at war, she thinks, he’s never had the opportunity for a Wanderjahr. While this interpretation reconciles Emily to Binx’s apparent aimlessness, it further alienates Binx. The whole conversation underscores Emily’s habit of seeing what she wants to see in people rather than seeing them as they really are—and when she looks at Binx, she sees a version of his late father, not Binx himself. With the medical school idea, Emily continues trying to build the version of Binx she hopes to see.
Themes
