Travis Bickle, an ex-marine, lives in an era that was revolved around prostitution, crime and garbage. He is left alone to battle his own physiological thoughts of what society should really consist of. Being mentally challenged, he comes to the conclusion that there must be a hero to stop the corruption of the society happening in the 1970’s. Bickle believes he is the designated one. Designated one to help Besty and Iris get away from their supposedly “sorrow”, designated one to erase the corruption done by the government, and the designated one to cleanse the sidewalk of the trash.

A scene that depicts this idea was the scene where Bickle decides that it is time to go rescue Iris from her misery. Bickle shoots Sports along with the other two gangsters and gets severely injured in the process. But is it morally right to do so? In his perspective, he is acting as a hero that is trying to protect Iris and lead her down the right path. But in other peoples’ perspective, he might be portrayed as an insane man that is fed up with the chaos of the society and becomes a madman killing people.

Travis served in the United States Corps during the Vietnam War. He was controlled by rule and experienced killing people in the war. This experience made him more suffer to live in society even more in his job, a taxi driver. In the beginning of the movie “taxi driver”, Travis Bickle says “Someday a rain will come and wipe this scum off the street”. A job of taxi driver has no choice but to see the dark side of society. And he was tried to keep his temper all the time, when he saw crimes, prostitution, etc. It was most bothering thing to him, because he was a taxi driver. It means that he does not have any power to distinguish between right and wrong or make them correct. He just endured. This gap between his though and act made him to be suffer from insomnia.

Furthermore, Travis is a symbol of people who live in New York City. People who live in the city are agree that modern products have improved the quality of our lives but they feel lonely between people and feel of alienation from human society. These city people’s lonely and sense of alienation portrayed as the taxi driver. Travis came in contract with many people, but they became strangers after they arrived at their destination. He could drive anywhere in NYC, but it was just outside of the city. He did not connect with other people. His suffer would be represented by his saying, when he catch a holdup man. He said “A man takes a job, you know and that job becomes what he is.” Therefore, a lonely and isolated taxi driver became himself. Also, when we ask about who is he/she; we answered his/her job rather than description of him/her. This is well represented of 1970’s society.

In the movie Taxi Driver, 1970’s New York is portrayed as a totally different city than what we see it as today in 2013. The city is filled with “filth, scum, dirt” and mainly – prostitutes. Girls at the age 0f 12 are being sold and treated with absolutely no respect and it is completely accepted in the society. The short dresses, half naked bodies, flirtatious looks are all just to get some money and make some business. Girls are being drugged and end up “stoned” in random taxis which they have to be escorted out from in a very suspicious way. Our main character, Travis, was completely conscious of what went on in his taxi when a pimp – Sport- took out Iris, yet after a 20 was throw down, Travis kept his mouth shut. The big difference between modern New York and 1970’s New York is the mentality of people.

You would believe that the prostitutes hated the way they got treated, yet when Travis kills the main people in the pimp business, Iris, the 12 year old prostitute, cried over the blood bath. Does that tell us that she enjoyed it? She wanted to stay out of school, dress slutty and make money the un-orthodox way? The movie clearly seems to hint so. In 1970’s prostitutes were easily identifiable on the streets, especially New York streets. Not to say there are no prostitutes on the streets now a days, but they are not as widely seen. Iris, seemed to even enjoy her job. She was not very reluctant to run away with Travis, go back home and go back to school. What the 1970’s society missed is that she enjoyed her job. Travis was rewarded as a hero who saved a poor 12 year old from big scary men, yet in Iris’s eyes, Sport was the hero. The New York society was clearly aware of who the pimps were, where their houses were and although they tried to crack down, Sport could easily try to brush the police off and joke around with them. This wouldn’t fly in today. Prostitution was a subject nobody talked about, yet it was widely used – like that big elephant in the room. We all know its there, we just won’t acknowledge it.

Overall, the streets of New York have changed. They are cleaner. They are more friendly. Less suspicious. But mainly, they are more safe (granted, some parts still might not be, but for the most part New York is a safe city). And girls like Iris, at 12 years old, will be in school, with parents or guardians, and mainly – not openly allowed in the prostitution business.

In the 1970’s many young men were returning home from the war in Vietnam. Many of these men were drafted into service before they could finish or even start college. As a result, many of these veterans could not get a good paying job and were forced to work low paying jobs. Many of these troops also had psychological problems due to experiences during the war. Also being in the war lead to these men having a distorted view of what was “normal”. The main character in Martin Scorcese’s classic film Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle, is in this situation.

At the beginning of the film, Travis Bickle walks into a taxi depot trying to find some work. One of the questions the boss/dispatcher asks is “Education?”, to which Bickle doesn’t give a straight answer. Bickle, like other war vets at the time, had little to no education and a psychological issue (insomnia) that essentially outcasted him to his own world. Travis volunteers to work the midnight shift since he can’t sleep at night. After fighting for his country, Travis came home to a city and nation that rejected him. Travis epitomizes the experience of war vets in the 1970’s after the Vietnam War.

Travis Bickle is an ex-marine who has little to no education and a very little options. He becomes a taxi driver in order to cope with the long, sleepless nights as well as make some cash. As a taxi driver Travis witnesses the crime, prostitution and corruption in New York City during the 1970s. Every night Travis witnesses these things firsthand in the back of his taxi cab. After a while, Travis becomes sick of the scum that lurks around New York City and decides to take matters into his own hands.

The scene that I found to be important was after Travis went into the grocery store. At that moment a robber walks in with a gun in order to rob it. At that moment Travis decides that he needs to step up and become a hero in that corrupted society. So Travis shoots and kills the robber. This scene shows Travis Bickle as a violent dogmatist. As a person that who wants to become a hero who can reform society and “wash the trash off the sidewalk.”

“Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is someone who stood up”

As Travis speaks to himself looking into a mirror holding a gun we can see how society in the 1970’s affected Travis’s mental stability. Travis’s job as a taxi driver opened his eyes to the filth and dirt on the streets.”Al the animals come out at night,” in the bizarre hours he was working he witnessed prostitution, crime, and garbage that took place while the normal people of the city were asleep, he experienced and was a part of what went on when the freaks came out to play. That was the key to Travis’s frustration that it was the streets he lived on. This irked him greatly. As Travis expresses his feelings about society’s chaos, how people were trash, how there was trash, and the crime, this perspective offered insight on how disturbed Travis’s mind was.

Even though the scene is more towards the end of the movie we can still see how involved the society’s downfalls affected Travis. His troubled mind would not find peace until action to store society took place. This is evident in his non stop plea to take out Betsy as well as his drastic actions to get Iris to leave Sport to go back home to her parents and to live a life a twelve year old should be living. Travis takes on a somewhat paternal role in trying to restore these women back to what he thinks is right for them. It’s not just the women he tries to restore, but the city of New York itself. He believes he is just the man to make the change happen. He buys a number of guns, cuts his hair into a mohawk and begins to talk to himself in a mirror. This is how we see society’s reflection on Travis. He becomes alone, desperate, depressed, and troubled.

A 26 years old ex-marine, insomniac, little education, and a bit odd.  ‘A bit odd’ can be an understatement as we see more of Travis as the movie progresses.  Nonetheless, these are some things we can tell about Travis from the movie.  So how did the 1970s American society define the life options for him?

We know that Travis is not very good at making personal connections with other people.  He does make several attempts, but they all fail miserably.  This is mainly due to how Travis lives.  He works 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Mornings are spent in porno theaters and he constantly takes pills.  Working as a graveyard shift taxi driver, all he sees is street crime and prostitution.  He became more lonely, more disgusted by what he saw.  Travis already went through the Vietnam War(assuming from when he was discharged) which probably was not a pleasant experience.  His life pattern only made everything worse.  He even took Betsy to a porno theater on a date.

There is a scene where Travis tries to get some advice from Wizard.  Wizard says “When a man takes a job, that becomes what he is”.  Although what he says does not speak to Travis’ problem, it speaks some truth about how things are.  At the end of the movie, Travis is labeled as a hero by the media.  But even after all the ‘thank you’ letters and media coverage, he is still a taxi driver.  Travis’ anger against “the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit” made him act out as a vigilante.  But in the end, he is still driving a cab.  Nothing changed.

“Go on, get laid, get drunk. Do anything. You got no choice, anyway. I mean, we’re all fucked. More or less, ya know.”

Loneliness only causes two consequences, a desperate or eager to vent invigorating impulses.

After the defeat in Vietnam, an awkward period of confusion, the disappointment of the American political and spiritual skepticism in the United States is quite common in younger people, while Travis is undoubtedly one of the typical representatives. As experienced all the hardships of WWII, people are actually lost a lot of “integrity personality”. after the war, he returned burdened with psychological fear and reality of the Vietnam War era all the mental stress, he, Travis, and I want effort into this society to go into the middle of New York to find a corner of their own survival, but, but never really integrate into it!

He lives in a completely closed world, in a taxi it is a closed space, and then come back to look at his residence, so dark and narrow, which suggested that he repressed, and depressed mental state. From a woman he met, began to unrequited love and later pursued her, and then she walked away to the “Wizard” series of dialogues with him, to the disappointment of senator, and to persuaded Alice returned home but get reject, Travis can no longer tolerate,Initially he believes that “the rain will wash away all the garbage,” but he realize this is not possible at end, he finally decided to eradicate the junk by himself. It can be said when he raised his gun, the gun is aligned with the whole social system of the United States.

Travis, a man Just come back to the Vietnam War Marines, returned to the United States, returned to New York in 1973 . But what wait for him is  dirty streets, sewer gas kept coming out like smoke , the streets filled with pimps,  violence, guns, drugs, prostitutes. After the war the United States , rising unemployment , inflation, confidence in the political and social unprecedented weak. He wanted to integrate into the society for which he tried hard.  he had tried to chat with presidential candidates, but made presidential candidates felt discomfort ; he tried to date Betsy , but get reject due to much difference with the others and refused to go to porn theaters.

When Candidates accidentally got into his taxi, and said with superior attitude that a taxi driver can be best person to embody the idea of ​​the entire United States. Travis said he was not interested in politics; just want the president to clean up the dirty things. His metaphor for society as a whole hypocrisy corruption phenomenon for candidates has no ability to reply and just say, “I know what you mean, but this requires a huge reorganization.”.

“Rectify “the words emphases in the first half of the movie means arranged the matter in logical order, which is divided between class and class. The candidate said, “We are the people, let the people themselves to rule their own good.” But how can people rule themselves, ‘class’ is the most reasonable. Cross this medium, no one could be recognized.

What you see in a society everyday can change who you are as a person with limited life options. That is just what happened to Travis Bickle in the movie, Taxi Driver. As a taxi driver, Travis witnessed how society was ran with the prostitution, pornography, crime, and garbage on the streets and sidewalks. He became outraged and this turned his life around to a whole new direction. To satisfy his frustration, he buys a number of guns from a gun dealer.

There was one scene that reflected Travis as a character and how he was portrayed in the society in the 1970’s. He looked into a mirror of himself as if he confronted an imaginary person with a gun. He says “You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin’ to? You talkin’ to me? Well I’m the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” as well as saying this following line “Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is someone who stood up” Society literally changed Travis to a lonely man that he is forced to speak into a reflection of himself. He has no one to make contact with and he is his own enemy. The reflection portrayed what Travis truly was in society; a lonely, violent individual.