Free English Literature Essays - Discuss the function of father figures in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction
There are no real ‘father figures’ in Pulp Fiction. Marsellus Wallace could be interpreted as a father figure of sorts to the other men in the film, but as he employs them to do his dirty work he can only really be thought of as their ‘boss’. None of the main characters are fathers themselves, and we do not meet any of their fathers. The only mention of a father comes in Story Two, ‘The Gold Watch’, and is of Butch’s father, who has been dead since he was a small child. Perhaps we can draw similarities here to director Quentin Tarantino’s own life – he too was brought up by a single mother when his father left.
Butch has never known his father but he still plays a large part in his life. As a young boy he receives a visit from Captain Koons, who served with his father in Vietnam, being imprisoned with him in the Prisoner of War camp where he finally died. The audience of Pulp Fiction is shown this visit through a flashback scene at the very beginning of the section of the film entitled ‘The Gold Watch’. Captain Koons has brought Butch the gold watch that belonged to his father, and was originally his ‘great-grandaddy’s war watch’ in World War 1. He then passed it down to his son when he fought in World War 2. He was killed, but had asked a fellow marine to take the watch to his young son (Butch’s dad) if anything should happen to him. So the ‘war watch’ has been worn by the men in Butch’s family for three generations of war.
The gold watch becomes a symbolic father figure for Butch, and as such provides the motivation for many of Butch’s actions throughout the film. The watch, and the history behind it, has helped to form Butch’s identity. He is not a soldier like the previous owners of the watch, but he is similarly paid to fight – he is a professional boxer.
After the flashback of the young Butch receiving the watch from Captain Koons we are shown the Butch of the present, the boxer ready to go into the ring. We do not see the match. The next thing on our screen is a shot of a taxi driver sitting in her car, listening to a radio report of how a boxer, Butch, has just killed his opponent.
So Butch the boxer – and the possessor of the gold watch – has just killed a man in a fight. He is as capable of warfare as any of his ancestors. The boxing ring is his battlefield.
Butch runs out of the ring and escapes in the waiting taxi, where he learns from the driver that he has killed his opponent. He does not seem concerned by this fact. After all, in his mind he is a boxer, and boxers are paid to fight – and if necessary to kill – just like soldiers.
Butch is now in serious trouble. He was paid by gangster Marsellus Wallace to lose the fight in the fifth round. Instead, he himself bet a large amount of money on winning the fight and is now a very rich man.
He goes to meet his girlfriend Fabienne. He has asked her to pack up all his belongings from their apartment and take them to the motel where they are staying before they flee with all the cash. The TV is on and she is half-watching a Vietnam film – a reminder both to Butch and to the audience of his father and the importance of the watch. It turns out that Fabienne has forgotten to bring the watch with her from the apartment. Butch is absolutely furious. He rages at her for being so stupid and then decides that he will have to go and get the watch from their apartment even though the gangsters he has conned will most likely be waiting there for him. This seems like a very reckless plan, but the watch is so important to Butch’s very identity that he simply cannot go on without it. They cannot execute the next stage of their plan – to leave the city – until he has the watch back. The watch is the only link Butch has to his dead father and his ancestors. He has never known his father but having possession of the watch from such a young age has made Butch into what he imagines his father was, and would have wanted him to be: a fighter. The watch is representative of a father figure for Butch and so has become extremely important to him, so much so that he is willing to risk his life to go and get it.
As he drives towards his apartment he gives himself a good talking to, in which we see just how much he identifies the watch with his father, and his own actions with those of his ancestors. He says, ‘This is my war… This watch is a symbol. It’s a symbol of how your father, and his father before him, and his father before him, distinguished themselves in war. And when I took Marsellus Wallace’s money, I started a war.’
Butch goes back to get the watch. He walks into the empty apartment and straight away sees it – it is exactly where he told Fabienne it would be. Gangster Vince Vega (one of Marsellus’ henchmen) comes out of the bathroom and Butch at once shoots him dead. After all, he is once again in possession of his ‘war-watch’, and back in the role of fighter.
He leaves the apartment and drives off, only going a short way before he literally runs into Marsellus Wallace. He is Vince’s boss and the man Butch has just conned out of a very large amount of money. Marsellus pursues Butch as he runs into a pawn shop. There the two men are captured by the perverted shop owner and his friend. They rape Marsellus in a back room while Butch manages to escape. Instead of leaving him there though Butch goes and gets a weapon, a samurai sword, and goes back to rescue Marsellus. The outcome of this episode is that Marsellus lets Butch off for losing him the money.
Even though they are enemies, ‘just as their plight in the POW camp creates a bond between [Butch’s dad] Major Coolidge and Captain Koons, so too does the torture sequence bring Marsellus and Butch together’. Butch has acted in a manner worthy of his father and the gold watch and has saved a man’s life in the face of a common enemy.
The gold watch (and through it Butch’s father) has played a very important role in these scenes, which are vital to the film as a whole. It was Butch’s obsession with getting the watch back which caused the chase between him and Marsellus that led them into the pawn shop and into the hands of Marsellus’ rapists. But it could also be said that Butch’s decision to save Marsellus was inspired by his recent realization of just how important the watch is to him, brought about by nearly losing it. This realization has reminded him of his father and ancestors, and has inspired him to ‘do the right thing’. By doing so he has honoured the memory of his father and has earned the right to possess the watch.
This episode is very important for Butch. By saving Marsellus, and acting with honour, he has redeemed himself of his previous crime. Marsellus lets him off his punishment on only two conditions, that he never tells anyone about the rape, and that he leaves the city and never comes back (which he was going to do anyway).
Marsellus Wallace is a central character in Pulp Fiction. He is the gangster boss and leader of the criminal underworld which the film inhabits. He is vitally important to the structure of the film, linking all the characters and storylines:‘Operating as the intersection of plots, Marsellus himself is the link that connects the divergent episodes and initially unrelated characters’
The episode in the pawn shop has changed the relationship between Butch and Marsellus. That Marsellus was raped and only Butch knows about it is significant. In the very straight, male-dominated criminal world that the men circulate in, for Marsellus to have been raped is the utmost humiliation. Before the rape, Marsellus was the most powerful character in the film, but now Butch has a certain amount of power over him.
Now he has remembered the value system appropriate to the watch and his ancestors, however, he is not interested in wielding this power over Marsellus, as the ‘old’ Butch may have done. He just wants to get on with his new life with Fabienne far away from his old one.
Although Pulp Fiction has no actual ‘father’ characters in it, the change in Butch – specifically in his attitude and newfound sense of honour – and in Marsellus (previously the most important character in the film) – demonstrated by his loss of power – has been directly brought about by the influence of the figure of Butch’s dead father, symbolized by the gold watch.
Bibliography
Mark T. Conard, ‘The Sign of the Empty Symbol, The death of God and the Royale with Cheese’ (http://metaphilm.com/philm.php?id=178_0_2_0)
Kevin Howley ‘Breaking, Making, and Killing Time in Pulp Fiction’ (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/film/journal/articles/making-breaking-and-killing.htm)
Dana Polan, Pulp Fiction (BFI Modern Classics, 2000).
Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avery, ‘Pulp Fiction Script, May 1993 Last Draft’
(http://www.godamongdirectors.com/scripts/pulp.shtml)
Dan Terkla, ‘I’m Gonna Git Medieval on Your Ass: Pulp Fiction for the 90s – the
1190s’, Studies in Popular Culture, 20: 1 (October 1997), pp.39-52.
Sharon Willis, ‘The Father’s Watch the Boy’s Room’, Camera
Obscura, 32 (1993-4), pp.40-73.
Paul Woods (ed) Quentin Tarantino: The Film Geek Files (London, Plexus 2000)
Paul A. Woods, King Pulp: The Wild World of Quentin Tarantino (London, Plexus 1998)
