Jules And Butch example essay topic

Pulp Fiction (1994) is a mesmerizing, violent and entertaining movie. It has a bizarre cast of characters, a nonlinear sequence of events and endless references to pop culture. The underlying theme of the movie, however, deals with religion and the transformation of two characters: Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) and Butch (Bruce Willis). In the beginning of the film, Vincent (John Travolta) has returned from a stay in Amsterdam, and the conversation between Jules and Vincent deals with what Big Macs and Quarter Pounders are called in Europe. As the movie moves on, other references are the Fonz on Happy Days, Arnold the Pig on Green Acres, the band Flock of Seagulls, Caine from Kung Fu, TV pilots, and other such topics. At first viewing, these kinds of references seem to be a kind of comic relief set against the violence the audience witnesses on the screen.

These brief, pop-culture symbols and icons are more than just comic relief. They are the way these characters make sense of their lives. In past centuries, people were "connected by something they saw as larger than themselves, most often religion, which would provide sense and meaning for their lives and which would help to determine the value of things". (The Sage, p. 10) Such a larger context is completely absent, however, from Jules's and Vincent's lives. This explains why the film is so saturated with these pop icons. The empty and subtle icon phrases are the reference points by which we now understand ourselves and each other.

These references comes to a real climax when Vincent and Mia (Uma Thurman) visit Jack Rabbit Slim's, where the host is Ed Sullivan, the singer is Ricky Nelson, the waiter is Buddy Holly, and the waitresses include Marilyn Monroe and Jane Mansfield. In the film, the pop cultural symbols are set into sudden words against a passage said to be from the Old Testament, Ezekiel 25: 17: The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee. Jules always quotes this just before he kills someone.

The point is that the passage refers to a system of values and meaning by which one could lead one's life and make moral decisions. However, that system has no connection with Jules's life and as he realizes later, the passage is actually meaningless to him. In addition to the pop references in the film, its dialogue on language is concerned with naming things. What's a Big Mac called? What's a Quarter Pounder called? What's a Whopper called?

When Ringo (Tim Roth) calls the waitress "garcon", she tells him: " 'garcon' means 'boy'". When Butch's girlfriend refers to his means of transportation as a "motorcycle", he insists on correcting her: "It's not a motorcycle, it's a chopper". When a Hispanic cab driver, however, asks Butch what his name means, he replies: "This is America, honey; our names don't mean shit". The point is clear that in the absence of any lasting ambition or value and meaning, our language no longer points to anything beyond itself. To call something good or evil makes it so since there's no higher authority or criteria by which one might judge such things. Jules quotes the "Bible" before his executions, but he might as well be quoting the Fonz or Buddy Holly.

This absence of any kind of system for making value judgments, this lack of a larger meaning to their lives, creates a kind of gap in their existence that is soon filled by power. Lacking any structure and principle for their lives, Vincent and Jules fall into a hierarchy of power with the crime boss Marsellus Wallace (Ving R hames) at the top and themselves as followers at the bottom. Marsellus provides more than a job for the men. He gives them a system of value. Anything now has value for them, only if Marsellus decides it does.

What he wants done, they do. His wishes become the guide for their actions at any given moment, until the task is completed by whatever means necessary. This is perfectly showed by the mysterious briefcase that Jules and Vincent are charged to return to Marsellus. It's mysterious because we never actually see what's in it, but we do see people's reactions to its obviously valuable contents. The question arises: what's in the briefcase?

This is a trick question, however. The answer is that it just doesn't matter. It makes no difference what's in the briefcase just like it doesn't matter what Jules quotes before he kills someone. All that matters is that Marsellus wants it back, and his desire promotes the thing with worth. It could have been a candy bar, but if Marsellus needs to have it, then Jules and Vincent have to do whatever they can to get it. If Jules and Vincent had an outside meaning in their lives, then they would be able to determine a worth for the contents of the briefcase and they would thus be able to determine the actions justified in retrieving it.

In the absence of any such structure, however, the briefcase becomes extremely valuable, precisely because Marsellus says so, and any and all actions required to acquire it become justified, including murder. Pulp Fiction is in part about Jules' transformation. When a kid hiding in the bathroom jumps out shoots at him and Vincent from a short distance and misses completely with every bullet, Jules explains it as divine intervention. The importance of this is not whether it really was divine intervention or not, but that the incident awakens Jules to reflect on what's missing from his life. It compels him to consider the "biblical" passage he's been thoughtlessly quoting for years. Jules begins to understand, even though confused at first, that the passage he quotes refers to an ambitious structure of value and meaning that he does not have.

The beginning of this understanding occurs when he reports to Vincent that he's quitting the mob. It becomes clearer when he repeats the passage to Ringo in the diner and analyzes it for him. He says: I've been saying that shit for years, and if you heard it-that meant your ass. I never gave much thought to what it meant-I just thought it was some cold-blooded shit to say to a motherfucker before I popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this morning that made me think twice.

See, now I'm thinking, maybe it means: you " re the Evil Man, and I'm the Righteous Man, and Mr. 9 mm hero-he's the Shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could mean: you " re the Righteous Man, and I'm the Shepherd; and it's the world that's evil and selfish. Now, I'd like that, but that shit ain't the truth. The truth is: you " re the Weak and I'm the Tyranny of Evil Men. But I'm trying, Ringo-I'm trying real hard to be the Shepherd. Jules offers three possible interpretations of the excerpt.

The first interpretation deals with the way he has been living his life. Whatever he does, as ordered by Marsellus, is justified, and so he's the Righteous Man with his pistol protecting him. Whatever stands in his way is therefore bad or evil. The second interpretation is engaging and seems to go along with Jules's fake religious attitude following what he interprets as a divine out of this world experience (he tells Vincent that he wants to wander the earth like Caine on Kung Fu). In this clarification, the world is evil and selfish, and apparently has made Jules do all the terrible things he's done up to that point. He's now become the Shepherd, and he's going to protect Ringo from this evil.

He realizes, though, that's not the truth. The truth is that he himself is the evil that he's been carelessly preaching about for years. Ringo is weak, neither good enough to be righteous nor strong enough to be as evil as Jules and Vincent. Jules is trying to transform himself into the Shepherd, to lead Ringo through the valley of darkness. Of course, interestingly, the darkness is of Jules's own making, so that the struggle to be the Shepherd is Jules's struggle with himself not to turn back to evil. In this struggle, he buys Ringo's life.

Ringo has collected the wallets of the customers in the coffee shop, including Jules's, and Jules allows him to take fifteen hundred dollars out of it. Jules is paying Ringo the fifteen hundred dollars to take the money from the coffee shop and simply leave so that Jules won't have to kill him. Jules tells him he is lucky to catch him in a time of transformation. No such transformation has taken place for Vincent, though, who exclaims: "Jules, you give that fucking nimrod fifteen hundred dollars, and I'm gonna shoot him on general principles". His general principles are, of course, that whatever means are necessary to achieve his end are justified-the end, once again, is most often being determined by Marsellus Wallace.

Vincent's attitude is clearly portrayed in his reaction to Mia's overdose. He tries desperately to save her, not because she's a fellow human being, but because she is Marsellus's wife and Vincent will be in a lot of trouble if she dies. Mia has value because Marsellus has made it so, just like the briefcase and everything else, not because of any natural worth, features, or characteristics she may possess. The other transformation in the film is that of Butch. It is important to note the distinct progress in the meaning and purpose of violence in the film. In the beginning, we see killings that are completely causeless: Brett and his buddies who are just lounging around, and particularly Marvin who is shot in the face simply because the car went over a bump and the gun went off.

There is also the "murder" of Tony Rocky Horror, the reason for which is hidden from all, except Marsellus, assuming that he actually had a reason. This is further evidence that it is Marsellus himself who provides the meaning and justification for things, and his reasons, like God's, are hidden from us. A big symbol that this is true may be that the bandage on the back of his neck, which represents the fact that Marsellus's motives and reasons are hidden to us. Bandages not only help to heal, they also hide or disguise what we don't want others to see. The meaninglessness of the violence is also capsuled in the boxing match.

Butch kills his opponent. When the cab driver, Esmarelda Villalobos (Angela Jones), informs him of this, Butch's reaction is one of complete indifference. He just shrugs it off as if nothing has happened. Furthermore, when Butch gets into a jam for double-crossing Marsellus, he initially thinks that the way out is to become like his enemy-to become cold blooded. Consequently, he shoots and kills Vincent and then tries to kill Marsellus by running him over with a car. The situation becomes more intriguing when Butch and Marsellus, each initially willing to kill each other without a second's thought, find themselves in the same unpleasant situation: held hostage by a couple of hillbillies who are about to beat and rape them.

Just as Jules's transformation had a defining moment, so too does Butch's. In his case, it is when, having overpowered the Gimp (Stephen Hipper t), he is about to escape but returns to save Marsellus. While the film's violence was initially pointless, when Butch returns to the cellar to aid Marsellus, violence for the first time acquires justification as an act of honor and friendship. He saves Marsellus, once his enemy, from men who are actually worse than they are. In the end, Butch escapes his troubles not by becoming like his enemy, but by saving his enemy. His transformation is further represented by his choice of weapons in the store: A hammer, a baseball bat, a chainsaw, and a Samurai sword.

He overlooks the first three items and chooses the fourth. The sword clearly stands out in the list. First, it's meant to be a weapon, while the others aren't. The sword also stands out because the first three items are brutal and messy killing forces not to mention less skill is involved in using them. They are barbaric. They represent the lawlessness society that Butch is leaving behind, but the Samurai sword represents a particular culture in which he is heading towards; a culture that is missing from these characters' lives.

The sword represents for Butch what the "biblical" passage does for Jules: a glimpse beyond brief pop culture, a glimpse into a concrete way of life, a manner of thinking, in which there are fair moral beliefs. There is meaning and value. In contrast to the foreign Samurai sword, there is the gold watch Butch is trying to get before he leaves town. It is a kind of legacy that's passed down in families. It represents a kind of tradition of honor and manhood.

But one must think about how this particular watch was passed down to Butch. Butch's great-grandfather buys it in Knoxville before he goes off to fight in World War I. Having survived the war, he passes it on to his son. Butch's grandfather leaves it to his own son before he goes into battle during World War II and is killed. Butch's father, interned in a Vietnamese POW camp, hides the watch in his rectum.

Before he dies, he gives it to his army comrade Koons (Christopher Walken), who hides it in his own rectum. Returning from the war, Koons finds the boy Butch and gives him the watch. The way in which Butch receives the watch is of course highly significant. His father hides it in his rectum thus being a "piece of crap" and an empty symbol. It is empty for the same reason that the "biblical" passage was meaningless.

It's a symbol with no referent, just sent to Butch by a long-absent father, whom he barely remembers. The sword is thus additionally significant because, unlike the gold watch, it connects Butch to his family's masculine line. The men in his family were warriors, soldiers in the various wars. Choosing the sword transforms Butch from a boxer, a detached fighter who steps alone into the ring, into a soldier, a warrior, which is defined in Webster's Dictionary as "a person who is connected to a history and a tradition, whose actions are guided by a code of conduct in which honor and courage are defining values".

It is also important to note how Butch is always returning. He seems doomed to return, perhaps to repeat things, until he gets it right. He must return to his apartment to get his watch. This come back is associated with his decision to become his enemy. There's his return to the cellar to save Marsellus.

There's also his return to Knoxville -- where Butch has planned to escape after he doesn't throw the fight. After he chooses the sword and saves Marsellus, Butch can rightfully return to Knoxville, now connected to his family. The big overall question that this movie asks us is that can our materialistic, disorderly, human relationships provide real and lasting meaning in our lives and in the world? Butch's actions hint at an agreeable answer. With his newly completed bonds of family, friendship, and love, Butch may achieve at least some aspect of a meaningful existence. And as a result, we are made to think about our own lives, especially in today's society full of pop culture icons and materialistic people.

This movie brings up philosophical questions such as why we do certain things and what is the true value in our life..