Walker Percy was a student of semiotics. He was also a novelist, and the two areas of study worked in tandem. As a Catholic novelist, some of the themes in his novels were religious, but Percy always sought to avoid overt or heavy-handed religious language. To that end, he incorporated symbolic language that pointed to some of these religious themes. This essay will examine the use of religious language and symbols in Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, in particular, the word “religion” itself, pinpointed by Percy in the epilogue of the novel. The passage in question stands out as a kind of code or mystery, a moment where Binx, the novel’s protagonist, drops a pointed hint to the reader.
Before looking at specific religious language or symbols in The Moviegoer, it is necessary to establish Percy’s interest in semiotics and also his perspective on the use of religious language in fiction. While admittedly the author’s input can only take us so far when examining a text, nonetheless this information may provide useful background to our exploration.
In addition to being known as a novelist, Walker Percy was also an essayist, writing especially about symbols in such works as “The Mystery of Language” and “Semiotic and a Theory of Language” from 1957, and “Symbol, Consciousness, and Intersubjectivity” from 1958. His interest in semiotics—the study of symbols—is well established, but one writer who discusses Percy’s study of the symbol in detail is Roberta Maguire in her 1997 article, “‘Proofs of God's Existence’: Walker Percy, Jacques Maritain, and the Problem of the Symbol in The Moviegoer.” In that article, Maguire describes Percy’s search, inspired by Maritain, to reconcile science and philosophy via the symbol (69-71). As a medical doctor and a novelist, and therefore a scientist and a philosopher and worker of symbols, Percy was well-equipped for the challenge. The common ground between science and philosophy, according to Percy, was the symbol, and he believed that an empirical or scientific approach to philosophy was necessary for the modern mind (Maguire 71). He writes, “however true and telling the deliverances of the existentialists, whether modern or Kierkegaardian or Thomist, in order that they become fully available to the Western mind, they must be approached from an empirical position and validated in an empirical framework” (Percy qtd. in Maguire 71). Percy employs this tactic in his fiction, too, when he tailors Christian existentialism to the modern reader.
In a 1971 interview conducted by Charles Bunting, Walker Percy said of the religious or salvific themes in his fiction,
The main difficulty is that of language. Of course the deeper themes of my novels are religious. When you speak of religion, it’s almost impossible for a novelist because you have to use the standard words like ‘God’ and ‘salvation’ and ‘baptism,’ ‘faith,’ and the words are pretty well used up...the so-called Catholic or Christian novelist nowadays has to be very indirect, if not downright deceitful, because all he has to do is say one word about salvation or redemption and the jig is up, you know. (41)
Percy outlines here the danger for the modern Christian writer of alienating his readers by coming off too heavy-handed, too proselytizing, and of writing a novel that is meant to represent too specific of a set of beliefs. Just as in philosophy Percy urged for a method that the modern Western mind could appreciate—namely, an empirical one—he also sought for a method of philosophizing through art that would not distance his readers.
One of the ways to get around these problems, to tailor a Christian worldview for a modern audience, is to use symbols. This is where our exploration of Percy’s The Moviegoer, originally published in 1961, comes in. That The Moviegoer has religious undertones, including Christian existentialism, has been well established by critics. Maguire’s article, mentioned above, for instance, traces the influences of Jacques Maritain, a Catholic philosopher, and Percy’s critiques of the nineteenth century philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson in The Moviegoer. David Crowe’s essay, “Kierkegaardian Misreadings of Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer” argues for the presence of Kierkegaardian thought in the novel, specifically Binx’s progression through Keirkegaard’s “stages of life.” And, perhaps most convincingly of all, Percy himself wrote, “I did not set out to write a novel ‘illustrating a thesis’...yet…the adventures of…Binx Bolling…had an agreeable way of showing forth, often in surprising turns, Kierkegaard’s ‘stages along life’s way.’ ”
As just a few examples of more obvious elements, I would also point to the deep faith of Binx’s half-brother Lonnie. Then there is this passage near the end of the book:
It is impossible to say why he is here. Is it part and parcel of the complex business of coming up in the world? Or is it because he believes that God himself is present here at the corner of Elysian Fields and Bons Enfants? Or is he here for both reasons: through some dim dazzling trick of grace, coming for the one and receiving the other as God’s own importunate bonus? (235).
Coming as it does near the end of the novel and just before Binx’s last mentioning of his “search,” this passage seems important, and Binx may even be talking about himself here.
Given the religious undertones of the novel, it is impressive and fascinating to note that Percy uses almost no overtly religious or philosophical language in the novel, the above example being about the most explicit of any. Binx himself says, “I have only to hear the word God and a curtain comes down in my head” (145). Percy, mindful of the dangers of religious language, employs language that hints at the novels’ deeper themes without stating them outright.
One way that symbolic language is used to evoke a religious undertone in the book is through echoes of the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins and images of the Holy Ghost. In an article titled “Hopkins’s Influence on Percy’s The Moviegoer,” Larry Fink examines traditional symbols of the Holy Ghost in conjunction with the echoes of the Roman Catholic priest’s poetry in the novel. Fink convincingly demonstrates that Percy had read and admired Hopkins, citing, for instance, a 1974 interview with Bradley Dewey, where Dewey asked “How did nature become such a part of your novels?” and Percy responded, “If you are talking about literary sources — and if you want a contrast with what the novels owe Kierkegaard — they owe something to an entirely different source: the English poet, Gerard Hopkins” (124). Fink goes on to cite instances of synesthesia and alliteration in The Moviegoer that he sees as Hopkins-inspired, such as when Binx smells “yellow cotton” (68) or tastes “lapsed time” (80) or when he says, “His lips move muscularly, molding words into pleasing shapes, marshalling argument” (18), a similar sound to Hopkins’ poem “Hurrahing in Harvest”: “has wilder, willful-wavier / Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?” (Fink 20). Fink also suggests that Binx and Hopkins share a common wonder for the intricate beauty of creation, even in the small things (24). In the Dewey interview, Percy said, “Hopkins [was] able to look at a cloud or a leaf or even a piece of rock and see in it what he called a certain ‘inscape,’ and… a gratuitous act of existence which was evidence of God’s existence. [Hopkins] saw [nature] in a very sacramental and religious way” (124). Thus these imitations and allusions to Hopkins add a religious note to the novel first because Hopkins was himself deeply religious and second because Percy adhered to and appreciated the Hopkinsian view of nature as sacramental and a reflection of God’s existence, and perhaps drew from it in his own nature descriptions.
Fink develops his argument by also examining symbols of the Holy Ghost in The Moviegoer. “The most important imagery related to Binx’s spiritual journey involves birds and wind,” writes Fink, “for they suggest the influence of the Holy Spirit on his heart. Ultimately, this imagery can be traced to the Bible, but indirectly, through Hopkins’s poetry” (24-5). Fink notes the use of bird-related language in even the first few pages of the novel, such as “twittering” (5), “perched” (8), “flock” (9), “wings” (10), followed by the naming of the Holy Ghost outright on page 10 (28). The writer’s ultimate position is that Percy uses bird-related imagery and the allusions to Hopkins to imply the activity of the Holy Ghost in Binx’s life.
Having seen some of the symbolic religious language used in The Moviegoer, it is time to turn to the purest form of symbol: language itself. Since words are the ultimate symbols, an exploration of a certain term could prove enlightening. In his nonfiction work The Message in the Bottle, Percy said of the symbol and language, “In Scholastic language, the symbol has the peculiar property of containing within itself in alio esse, in another mode of existence, that which is symbolized…The word is that by which the thing is conceived or known. It is, in Scholastic language, an intention” (261). In other words, symbols, and specifically linguistic symbols, can contain or indicate the very essence of things. With that preface, then, I wish to extend Fink’s conversation on symbols by examining Percy’s use of the word “religion” itself. We know this word is important because Percy more or less told us so. In the epilogue to the novel, Binx says, “As for my search, I have not the inclination to say much on the subject...Further: I am a member of my mother’s family after all, and so naturally shy away from the subject of religion (a peculiar word this in the first place, religion; it is something to be suspicious of)” (237). That parenthetical appears almost like a hint or a code, begging the reader to look more closely at the word in question, especially because it follows directly on Binx’s last mention of his enigmatic “search,” a pivotal theme throughout the novel.
A brief look at the etymology of the word “religion” reveals some interesting possibilities. According to The Catholic Encyclopedia, Cicero derived the word from the Latin relegere meaning “to treat carefully.” Lactantius, on the other hand, drew it from religare; “to bind.” If the word is “an intention” and a representation “in another mode of existence” as Percy puts it, what are we to make of this “binding”? What is Percy’s intention in placing the spotlight on this word? Binx does not tell us outright that his search has been of a religious nature or that it has led him to religion. What Percy may wish to suggest with this word, however, is that—whatever else he may have found or become—Binx has become more connected to people and to place by the end of the novel. Part of Binx’s problem, part of the malaise that he fears throughout the novel, is an overwhelming disconnection from people and place, as when Binx laments, “If I did not talk to the theater owner or the ticket seller, I should be lost, cut loose metaphysically speaking. I should be seeing one copy of a film which might be shown anywhere and at any time. There is a danger of slipping clean out of space and time” (75), or when Kate observes, “Have you noticed that only in time of illness or disaster or death are people real?” (81), which demonstrates that people are not real, are not connected, outside of these moments of catastrophe. If we accept this premise, then the significance of Binx’s (and Percy’s) emphasis on the word “religion,” meaning “to bind,” becomes clear. Religion, in whatever sense one chooses to interpret it, becomes a representation of connection, of binding. Binx is going to marry Kate, a very clear example of his achieving greater connection with another human being. He is also going to go to medical school and, presumably, have a traditional career, probably tied to a specific medical institution. All of these are grounding factors, all of these represent a movement away from the disconnection of the malaise, toward a place of stability.
It may be objected that Binx indicates his suspicion of the word “religion” with its connotations of binding. However, we must remember the context for this remark. It is in reference to the conclusion of his search that he brings up the subject. He says that he cannot speak too much about the conclusion of his search because he is reluctant to talk about religion, which implies that religion, or at least “binding,” has something to do with the resolution of the search. It is we, the readers, who must be suspicious of the word, in the sense of scrutinizing it more closely and of uncovering its significance. This, I hope, is what we have done in noting its association with binding and thus with stability, the antidote to the disconnection of the malaise.
Works Cited
Aiken, Charles Francis. "Religion." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 1 Nov. 2017. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12738a.htm
Crowe, David. “Kierkegaardian Misreadings of Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer.” Christianity and Literature, vol. 64, no. 2., March 2015, pp. 187-204. MLA International Bibliography. DOI: 10.1177/0148333114567264.
Fink, Larry E. “Hopkins’s Influence on Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer.” Renascence, vol. 69, no. 1, 2017, pp. 17-32. DOI: 10.5840/renascence20176912.
Lawson, Lewis A., and Victor A. Kramer, editors. Conversations with Walker Percy. University Press of Mississippi, 1985.
Maguire, Roberta. “’Proofs of God's Existence’: Walker Percy, Jacques Maritain, and the Problem of the Symbol in The Moviegoer.” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, vol. 1, num. 3, 1997, pp.69-79. MLA International Bibliography. DOI: 10.1353/log.1997.0018.
Percy, Walker. The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and
What One Has to Do with the Other. 1975. Picador, 2000.
Percy, Walker. The Moviegoer. 1961. Vintage, 1998.