The Dude Testament

38. The Dude abides.

To wrap things all up, or to make an attempt at least, our cowboy narrator shows up once again. We still don’t know why he’s there, but we like the fact that he is. He’s a comforting presence. Without him we might not have recognized how important the Dude actually is, might have laughed him off as a mere buffoon. But by placing the Dude in context, priming us to understand that he’s not just a man, but that he’s “the man for his time and place” who is “takin ’er easy for us sinners,” the Stranger achieves the modest task that was his charge, and he can get back on that suitably high horse, rambling further on down the trail.

This, of course, is the reason mankind stubbornly adheres to the idea of religion or God, and avatars like Jesus, Krishna, the Buddha. There’s something undeniably comforting in believing there’s a right way to do things, something prefigured into the tapestry of the universe, the rug that ties everything together. And that there are men for their time and place that can best exemplify how we ourselves might “fit right in there.” Whether these beliefs are true or not, mankind is in desperate need of them. However, after 3,000 years of beautiful tradition, might it not be high time to look toward another bearded, misunderstood monk who drinks carefully from the sacred beverage of half-and-half?

When the film’s folksy narrator wishes the Dude good luck, our hee-ro says, “Well, you know, the Dude abides,” and the Stranger “takes comfort in that.” But “Dude” has already been established in the film as a non-personal noun, as a state of being, as in the Dude and the un-Dude. “The Dude abides,” therefore, doesn’t just refer to this one person in this one place at this one time, but to an eternal principle of Dudeism. Down through the ages. Across the sands of time. It perseveres as it plays. It takes it easy for us sinners. It always has.[29]

The Stranger then says, “Welp, that about wraps ’er up.” But of course, on face value, it absolutely does not. The Dude doesn’t get his rug back and we don’t know if he and Walter win the tournament. We don’t even know for sure if Lebowski stole the money, and if he did, whether it was ever returned. So many of the strands in old Dude’s head are still loose, flapping in the wind like the frayed ends of a half-woven rug. But then, why should The Big Lebowski be neatly wrapped up when life itself is not?

That’s the way the whole durn human comedy keeps perpetuatin’ itself. The story’s ludicrous. But it’s a good story. Don’tcha think? Forget about the fucking TOE. Were you listening to the Dude’s story? Sometimes there’s a frame of reference. It’s the worldview for its time and place. And that’s also the Dude’s, in The Big Lebowski. Abide by this.