The Distorted Reality of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver

In the American film classic, Taxi Driver directed by Martin Scorcese, Travis Bickle's personality and point of view of reality are heavily twisted. His disassociation with the norm and extreme mental states of mind depict the life of a deranged, depraved, and lonely Vietnam veteran. His terrible social skills are an apparent sign of mental illness and continue to drive Travis into deeper levels of solidarity. This loneliness gradually fuels Travis into living a miserable and misanthropic life. Travis's social ineptitude inevitably leads to his isolation and distorted perception of himself and the rest of society.

The film opens with Travis being interview and accepting the job as a taxi driver. He explains his willingness to work lots of extra hours and preference for night shifts is due to his inability to sleep. It is revealed then that Travis suffers from insomnia. Although Insomnia is a serious disease, Travis seems complacent and shows no interest in curing himself. Even in the first scene of the film, it is already exposed that Travis suffers from at least one mental disorder yet has no aspirations to improve himself.

Upon getting the job and exiting his place of work, he proceeds to pull out a flask of what is perceived to be alcohol and starts drinking it in the clear of day on the street. He displays no inclination that his actions are not the acceptable social norm. After a long twelve hour shift, Travis reflects on how the city of Manhattan has become a dump for degenerate punks and prostitutes. He perceives the New York nightlife he caters to and drives around as garbage polluting his town. He himself then enters a dirty porn theater once he's off-duty.

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He does not see the similarities between himself and the other pervs and goons of New York City. He sees them as lowly scum that are responsible for the dirtiness of the city, even though he is apart of the same dreary world he despises. The constant encounters with lowlifes and trash creates Travis's view of the city as a terrible and mediocre place, while he forgets about how during the daytime the streets of Manhattan are much different. His only evidence to judge the city is through the brief interactions and conversations between himself and his patrons.

And with most of them being drunks and criminals, Travis is left with a distrustful and negative view of what the inhabitants of the city where he lives. He is alone and only has himself to create assumption of what reality really is, and unfortunately with his mental illnesses he is in dyer need of someone to guide him towards reality. Yet when Travis attempts to find someone who can give him companionship and help him, his lack of social skills only push people farther away. When purchasing his ticket for the porn theater, Travis tries to initiate a relatively normal conversation with the young woman at the concessions.

She shows obvious disgust towards Travis but with this unbeknownst to him he continues the conversation and presses her for her name. Upon failing, he enters the theater but doesn't seem to understand why she was so resistant to introduce herself. His inability to pick up on social cues only confuses Travis and separates him even more from social interaction. Travis then sits alone in the theater with the various purchased candies sleep deprived and further drifts into his own little world. Even the relationship with his family has been severed because of Travis purposely lying to family through the mail.

He has been telling them for what is assumed many years that he has been healthy and fine but is now working for the federal government and is unable to give them his real home address. These blatant lies prove Travis's reality is not like our own and also shows how his mental illnesses have successfully removed him from a sane state of mind. Travis's doomed future of complete and utter insanity is surprisingly sidetracked when he sees Betsy for the first time. At his first site of her he describes her begin an angel, the purest of beings among the dirt and scum of the city.

He envisions her as angelic perfection and of course, due to his lacking social skills begins spying on her from his cab for a number of weeks to the point that Betsy actually notices his stalking. Though eventually Travis gets the stregnth to ask her out. He dresses noticeably nicer than usual and appears to act as normal as he physically can. Betsy's first impression of Travis is seen with much curiosity. He interests her because of his odd and quirky demeanor and agrees to go out for coffee with him. Travis successfully takes her out for coffee without any problems of showing his ineptitude in social situation.

Following their coffee date, Travis's decides to take Betsy to a movie. His relationship with Betsy ends with him bringing her to a film at one of the porn theaters he frequents instead of a regular cinema. The choice of venue disgusts Betsy and leaves her in contempt for Travis. And after several attempts to win her back with gifts and hundreds of phone calls Travis justifies himself by concluding she is not the angel he envisioned earlier but really just like all the other dirt he's surrounded by. He had destroyed the only relationship he had in the world because he was not able to realize what was socially acceptable.

Though Travis was quick to write Betsy off as just another scum of the city, his anger and disappointment towards grow increasingly more visible. Before his fling with Betsy he had only been a secluded and seemingly content with his life. He was fine with how he lived and saw nothing wrong with his skewed view of reality. But after his final confrontation with Betsy at her place of work, he exhibits a new qualities of violence and almost throws a punch at one of Betsy's co-workers. Travis's spark of violence is implodes when he has a passenger which forever changes his psyche.

The passenger directs Travis to park across the street from a specific apartment building. At the angle they parked the man witnesses his wife through the window of another man's apartment. As Travis listens from the driver's seat, he hears the furious man's deliberation of how he will make his wife pay for cheating on him. The man's violent and graphic detailing of his of he is going to murder his wife and her lover affects Travis in very powerful ways. Travis's lack of interaction with people leaves him vulnerable and very impressionable. The encounter he has with the patron is more interaction than he has had since his break up with Betsy.

Even with Travis remaining completely silent through the event he is detrimentally changed. He irrationally takes the man's horrific description as a sign of determination and strength. He almost seems to admire the man's ability to take control of the situation and do what he believes is fair and just. Even while the man continually says “You must think I'm pretty sick” Travis seems to be already planning his own similar plan on doing his own vigilante law enforcement. Following that night, Travis concludes he is destined to do justice and clean the dirt off the streets himself.

Just as the passenger had planned to do, he believed to do what is right you must take matters into your own hands. Travis sees this as an opportunity to get rid of the scum polluting his city and to prove to himself that he is someone who has made in impact. This is the ultimate breaking point for Travis. He seems to have cut any strands he had with reality and is only viewing the world as his own playground for justice. He immediately begins changing his life style. He begins daily regiments of exercise and weight training. He starts to drink and eat healthier and no longer drinks alcohol or consumes medications.

He also trains his body for combat and pushes his body and mind to new limits, even sticking his hand into scolding flames to learn pain suppression. His obsession with his body and mind makes Travis an empty canister of dangerous ideas. These new life choices all occur at the same time he buys four guns from an illegal dealer. He tells the man he is going to change his life and eagerly practices using his weapons upon buying them while pointing them at innocent civilians in the street below the building he is in. This makes Travis even more dangerous and likely to be violent.

His perception of right and wrong are invisible and his objectives seem to illogical, irrational, and completely insane. These objectives culminate into him becoming hell-bent on making the dirt of his home pay and feels it is time for him to truly make a difference. His course of action to change the city for good fixates onto Iris. Iris is an underage prostitute which Travis had only came in brief contact with before deciding she would be his “damsel in distress”. He begins his quest to save her from the slums she is living in and get her back to a safe regular life that he feels she deserves.

He is obsessed with making an impact in Iris's life and by doing so fulfilling what he believes is his purpose in life. It is clear at this point that Travis no longer has any concept of reality or even the law. He has no fear of the outcome of his actions and then decides to assassinate Palantine, a leading presidential candidate whom is also Betsy's boss. These actions are what Travis sees as his last stand against the world and all of it's evils and problems. Determined to make a difference he arrives at the rally Palantine is having and readies himself knowing he will most likely die.

Confident he will die during the attempt, he leaves a letter with 500 dollars in it explaining he is probably dead by the time she reads the letter. He has lost all rationality and has no second thoughts on staying alive. He has no connection with the world yet he is focused on changing it. Fortunately, his assassination attempt fails and Travis flees from secret service. Surprised to still be alive, Travis goes to the apartment which Iris and her pimp, Sport, use for her services. Still armed to the teeth, he quickly kills Sport while he is guarding the entrance to where Iris is.

A gun fight ensues resulting in Travis being shot multiple times but killing the others involved. He sees scared and trembling Iris and feels he has done his job successfully. The belief that he succeeded conveys that Travis has completely extroverted himself from normalcy and has no longer has a sane thought in his mind. Once completing his objective he tries to commit suicide multiple times but fails because of his guns are empty and he has ran out of bullets. Now that he is fulfilled his duty he feels useless and accepts his fate to die.

As he sits and bleeds out through his many bullet holes the police arrive only to find him miming a gun and “shooting” himself in the head. The police take him and he remarkably survives though goes into a coma for many months. Upon finally waking up he sees that he has been proclaimed a hero by the city for killing off the multiple criminals he had shot. Travis's actions had been viewed positively by the public who saw him as a symbol for morals and a model citizen. His attempt to kill Palantine was unknown and his plans that were driven by insanity were seen as acts of bravery.

Only when Travis was completely distanced and separated from society by his mental illness do they recognize him. And ironically recognize him in a positive way not realizing that he is truly needs help and psychological examination. Travis's dive into psychosis was a collaboration of mental illness which he could no longer subdue. Each one triggering a stronger and powerful response which led him into the depths of solitude and isolation. He was without social stimulation for extensive periods of time and his lack of interaction with others only led to his psychological demise.

Not many people came into contact with Travis but when they did they impacted him in very extreme ways. These interactions led to Travis making decisive actions and decision which forced him out of control. He was tragdically without help and unable to even ask for some because he didn't even realize there was anything wrong with himself in the first place. His mental problems created a young man who spiraled out of control without the ability to stop and understand his problems. His escalations led to him not only not able to see reality correctly but also not realize he needed help and was suffering from multiple mental illnesses.

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