This paper addresses Walker Percy’s first novel, The Moviegoer, tracing the use of existentialist tropes in its narrative construction in order to delineate the problematic condition of the human individual in the postwar South. The protagonist’s search for an authentic self and his escape from the snares of everydayness are put into perspective in the context of Percy’s professed understanding of Kierkegaard and Sartre, against the background of a South increasingly alienated from her ancient traditions.
Dan Nicolae Popescu
Author
Dan Nicolae Popescu is a lecturer at the Ștefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Romania, and holds a Ph.D. in Anglo-American literature. His academic interests include literary, cultural, and translation studies with a particular emphasis on Medieval English literature and the literature of the American South.