Pulp Fiction and the Search for Meaning
The hidden meaning you missed when you watched this movie
Pulp Fiction is one of my favourite movies. I think it is secretly quite deep.
I think it’s about the search for meaning.
I’ll explain quickly using two examples: the two hitmen and the dishonest warrior.
The Two Hitmen
Jules and Vince are hitmen working for Marcellus Wallace. One is good at his job (Jules) and the other is not (Vince).
One day they get shot at, close-range, and a strange thing happens: all the bullets miss. There are bullet holes on the wall behind them.
After they shoot dead the guy who was trying to kill them, Jules examines the bullet holes on the wall and utters reverently, “We should be dead. This is a miracle.” I’m paraphrasing — no time to check the movie for the actual quotes.
Jules shrugs and says these things happen. It was a freak occurrence, not a miracle.
Jules says that he believes God came down from heaven and stopped the bullet. Vince scoffs, laughs.
Later on, Jules tells Vince that he has decided to quit this life of crime. He believes God has given him a second chance for a reason. And until he finds out why, he can’t “go back to sleep”. He’s going to tell Marcellus that he is resigning and he is going to live a vagabond life (“I’m going to walk the earth like Cain in Kung Fu.”)
Again, Vince scoffs. He says, “So you are going to be a bum.”
Jules shrugs. His mind is made up.
Later on in the movie, Vince gets killed with his own gun.
If Vince had been as reverent as Jules about the miracle, would he have died?
If Vince had been able to read meaning in their miraculous survival of the close-range hail of bullets, would he have ended up a corpse?
Is there a God in Quentin Tarantino’s world and was He angry at Vince for his scornful, thoughtless behaviour?
The Dishonest Warrior
Butch’s father’s watch represents masculine honour, because of what his father, grandfather, and great grandfather went through at war to make sure he gets it.
Butch is a warrior who has lost his honour. A samurai/knight that has dealt dishonestly with his master/lord. He was paid by Marcellus to throw the fight, but he didn’t.
In the taxi, the Mexican woman driving asks him what his name means. Him: “We are American, honey. Our names don’t mean shit.”
The lack of meaning and values in the post-industrialized, capitalistic, hyper-consumerism society that is America.
At the pawn shop, Butch considers leaving Marcellus to his ignominious fate.
But as he is about to leave, he stops and thinks. A silent epiphany. What really goes through is mind: “What would my father do?”
All this is happening because he couldn’t leave his father’s watch behind.
In this moment, Butch understands the significance of the watch. He has to live up to the standards of masculine honour set by his forbears.
He goes through a set of weapons before finally landing on a Samurai sword.
The Samurai: a Japanese warrior class imbued with a high sense of masculine honour. Butch has found his honour after having lost it when he deceived Marcellus.
The Samurai always served a master. Samurai without a master were called Ronin.
Butch returns into the basement of the pawnshop to save his master. In return, he is forgiven for his dishonesty.
Knights and samurai are people whose lives have meaning, because they live in service of someone else. That would be the two hitmen Vince and Jules serving Marcellus Wallace. Butch has been recruited into Marcellus’s service too, but he acts without honour when he double-crosses Marcellus.
Marcellus wanted Butch to throw the fight, which is dishonorouble. So you might argue that Butch disobeying Marcellus was an act of honour. But it wasn’t for two reasons:
a) He had already accepted Marcellus’s money. Ergo he was bound by honour to be true to his word.
b) He refused to throw the fight not out of principle, but to enrich himself (he placed heavy bets on himself winning — and he probably did that using the wads of cash money Marcellus had already given him earlier in the movie).
It is therefore clear that Butch is a corrupt knight/samurai/warrior. His story arc is about how he regains his honour.
Vince regained his reverence for God and the meaning of life after a near-death experience. Butch also regains his sense of honour when put into a life and death situation — but most importantly, when the opportunity presents itself for him to be of service to someone else: to his master/lord/boss Marcellus Wallace.
Butch could have walked away from the pawn shop and left Marcellus to that evil fate. But his conscience would have tortured him for the rest of his life. His father’s watch would have accused him and tormented him with guilt until he wouldn’t be able to see it. The only way Butch can bear to live with himself and honour his masculine forbears is if he goes back and does this heroic thing not for glory but simply to save Marcellus.
For a knight/samurai, a life without honour is meaningless. By regaining his honour, Butch has brought back meaning into his life. Now he can wear the watch with real pride. He has earned the right to wear it.
