The End of Walker Percy’s THE MOVIEGOER

According to Ari Schulman:

Because of Percy’s explicit engagement with Kierkegaard, we may justifiably interpret the ending as a representation of the ethical/aesthetic choice . . . .Binx, that is, begins the novel in the aesthetic mode, but by the end, he has given up moviegoing and committed to society by becoming a doctor and getting engaged. But, as shown above, Binx’s radical choice to accept the ethical mode is a failure. We can understand this failure as Percy’s again having independently reached the same conclusion as MacIntyre: that the ethical cannot be simply radically chosen, because the notion of the radical choice is itself only at home in the aesthetic mode. Hence we find that Binx has simply become the consummate actor by fully committing to an ethicalrole. But of course, because he is still ultimately an actor, at the end we find Binx no less ironic, phony, or detached from being in the world.