Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino’s signature film, memorably combines violence, hilarity, and theological reflection. Its central characters, Jules and Vincent, are hit men. Although at the film’s beginning they are more or less on the same page ethically–both content with their job, both killers with little pity for their victims–their viewpoints diverge radically after a hit almost goes fatally wrong. Jules’ perspective is wholly reoriented, while Vincent’s remains the same. Jules resolves to abandon his criminal life, while Vincent clings to it and is killed soon after.
Jules has a habit of reciting a well crafted speech before blowing away his victims:
“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 you.”
Why does Jules recite this speech? As he admits in a mood of self-critique at the film’s end, “I been sayin’ that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, it meant your ass. I never really questioned what it meant. I thought it was just a coldblooded thing to say to a motherfucker ‘fore you popped a cap in his ass.”
As a hit man for L.A. gangster, Marsellus Wallace, Jules kills people for a living, but he also has a sense of style. He recites this quasi-biblical passage to build the intensity before striking the executioner’s blow. He likes the dramatic imagery and grandiose phrases. Jules may also enjoy reciting this speech because it serves as a self-justifying hermeneutic for killing others. Not that Jules is religious, but that the powerful rhetoric seems to give him the confidence to adopt the role of merciless killer necessary for his occupation. The speech has a self-aggrandizing effect, making murder seem righteous, as Jules casts himself as the instrument of divine wrath.
Jules gives this speech twice in the movie: the first time, near the beginning, he delivers it with great fervor before he carries out a hit on Brett; the second time, near the film’s end, he recites the words in a more subdued tone in the diner, after having forsaken murder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2WK_eWihdU
Jules claims that this speech is from Ezekiel 25:17, though only the last part of it is. In the English Standard Version, Ezekiel 25:17 reads, “I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I lay my vengeance upon them.” This last part is how Jules ends his recitation, but the rest of his speech is not in the biblical text. The context of Ezekiel 25 is a series of judgments against enemies of Israel: Ammon, Moab and Seir, Edom, and Philistia.
The speech is filled with biblical phrases, like “Blessed is he” and the “valley of darkness,” and various biblical buzz-words, like “righteous,” “iniquities,” and “charity.” It also includes a number of characters which could be said to have biblical models: the Selfish, the Weak, Evil Men, the Shepherd, and Lost Children. As we will see, Jules’ transformation will involve his embracing the shepherd’s role of guiding others.
What changes between the first and second time Jules recites the speech? The plot unfolds in a non-linear fashion, so the scene in which Jules and Vincent kill Brett and his friends is split into two parts. The first part of the scene ends with Jules reciting his speech, and then Vincent joining him in blowing Brett away. In the second part of the scene, however, we discover that another of Brett’s friends was hiding in the bathroom. This guy unloads his own gun at Jules and Vincent. Incredibly, he misses completely, and Jules and Vincent kill him, as well.
Jules and Vincent respond in diametrically opposed ways to this. Jules believes it’s a miracle; Vincent believes it’s luck. Jules exclaims, “We should be fuckin’ dead!” and Vincent replies, “Yeah, we were lucky.” Jules immediately realizes that Vincent’s idea of luck and his own conception of the miraculous are incompatible. Jules says, “That shit wasn’t luck,” and continues “ That was . . . divine intervention.” He asks Vincent, “You know what divine intervention is?” and Vincent responds, “That means God came down from Heaven and stopped the bullets.” Vincent is being sardonic, but Jules is dead serious, “ Yeah, man, that’s what is means. That’s exactly what it means! God came down from Heaven and stopped the bullets.” Vincent still tries to down-play what happened, “Chill the fuck out, Jules, this shit happens,” but Jules is insistent, “We should be fuckin’ dead now, my friend! We just witnessed a miracle, and I want you to fuckin’ acknowledge it!”
For the first time in his life, Jules is willing to consider that God may be real, and not just real, but intimately involved in human life–so involved that He would comes down from heaven to deflect bullets away from a couple of hit men.
In All Things Shining, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly analyze the disparity between Jules’ gratitude and Vincent’s skepticism toward their miraculous survival. They align Jules with the Greek spirit of wonder, exemplified by Homeric figures like Odysseus, and Vincent with the more Roman belief in chance. Vincent, like “the Roman citizen invoking blind Fortuna” (70), cannot understand Jules’ gratitude. Dreyfus and Kelly observe that Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck, “has no natural precursor in the Homeric world” (65) Unlike the Greek world, in which favorable events were thought to be caused by the beneficence of the gods, in the Roman world of Fortune, “stoicism and reserve” (65) are the proper attitudes. Stoicism and wonder represent incompatible alternatives: either good things happen for a reason, and should elicit gratitude, or they are the results of random chance, and should merely be shrugged off. When the spears of Odysseus’ foes go awry, he praises Athena, just as Jules is grateful to the divine for miraculously surviving a barrage of shots fired at him from point-blank range.
Dreyfus and Kelly argue that a life of wonder and gratitude is more meaningful than one of stoicism. They observe that ungrateful characters in Homer are typically condemned. Ajax, for instance, offends Poseidon by claiming that he survived the wreckage of his ship unaided by the gods. Poseidon destroys Ajax for his lack of gratitude. Pulp Fiction gives Vincent a similar fate.
While Vincent maintains his cynical position, Jules’ beliefs are reoriented by the miracle. Jules says, “But me, my eyes are wide fuckin’ open” and then tells Vincent that he is going to retire. Vincent finds Jules’ resolution absurd; he cannot fathom why Jules interprets what happened to be anything more than good fortune. Like many in the modern world, Vincent cannot accept miracles, the supernatural, or Providence; he is shocked that Jules seems to imply that “God came down from Heaven and stopped the bullets.”
Vincent’s indifference is even more extreme when we consider that this is the second of three “miracles” which he experiences throughout the film.
The first miracle: at Marsellus’ request, Vincent takes his boss’s wife, Mia, out for the evening; Mia snorts some of his heroin, thinking it is cocaine; she almost dies, but Vincent gives her a shot of adrenaline to the heart. Had Mia died, Marsellus certainly would have had Vincent killed.
The third miracle: Jules and Vincent drive off with a friend of Jules’ named Marvin who was connected to Brett. Vincent accidentally shoots Marvin in the face, and Jules goes to his friend Jimmy’s house to get off the road. Jimmy’s wife, Bonnie, will soon be home, and Jules, Vincent, and the car are covered in blood and gore. With the help of Mr. Wolf, however, the body is hidden in the trunk, the car is cleaned, and Jules and Vincent get some new clothes before Bonnie gets home. They succeed in driving the car to a junkyard where the evidence will be discreetly destroyed. Vincent, therefore, has at least three profound reasons to feel immense gratitude, yet he feels none.
Later, as Jules and Vincent share breakfast at a diner, they continue their discussion of the alleged miracle. Vincent reiterates his skepticism: “I witnessed a freak occurrence.” Jules counters that Vincent is looking at it all wrong, that “What is significant is I felt God’s touch, God got involved.” Jules argues that he experienced God’s presence in their survival, and he cannot go back to his old life after that.
Vincent wonders what Jules will do now. Jules says he plans to “walk the earth.” Vincent is pretty confused as to what this means, so Jules clarifies: “Just walk from town to town, meet people, get in adventures.” Jules envisions an itinerant life of ministry not unlike Jesus’. Vincent is not sold on the wisdom of Jules’ plan, so he asks, “How long do you intend to walk the earth?” Jules responds, “Until God puts me where he wants me to be.” Vincent then asks, “What if he never does?” Jules’ reply reveals the depth of his new-found faith: “If it takes forever, I’ll wait forever.” Now that he trusts that God intervened to save him from those bullets, Jules believes that God has some purpose for his life and is fully open to whatever it may be. Jules has been so transformed by the miracle he experienced that he is willing to forsake his old life and devote himself to wandering the earth with no promise of reward.
Vincent decides that Jules will become a bum, “like those pieces of shit out there who beg for change. They walk around like a bunch of fuckin’ zombies, they sleep in garbage bins, they eat what I throw away, and dogs piss on ’em.” Vincent is also unnerved by how unwavering Jules is in his new sense of certainty about the folly of his old life and his determination to begin his new life. At one point, Vincent says, “Stop fuckin’ talkin’ like that!” to which Jules replies, “If you find my answers frightening, Vincent, you should cease askin’ scary questions.” The “scary questions” which the two have been entertaining are scary to Vincent because they question everything which he has assumed about life. Jules has brought an ethical dimension into things which was previously absent.
Vincent makes decisions based on how they will benefit him. He is an essentially selfish person, in the sense that his moral calculus rarely prioritizes the good of others. The only traditional virtue which Vincent seems to abide by is loyalty, and even that commitment is tenuous at best. After taking Mia out, Vincent finds himself back at the Wallace home, considering whether or not he should sleep with Mia. Mia obviously enjoys her night out with Vincent, and invites him in for a drink when he takes her home. Vincent goes into the bathroom to debate his course of action with himself.
Vincent speaks aloud to the mirror: “One drink and leave. Don’t be rude, but drink your drink quickly, say goodbye, walk out the door, get in your car, and go down the road.” He tries to convince himself to leave without taking advantage of Mia. Vincent recognizes the situation’s ethical dimension: “It’s a moral test of yourself, whether or not you can maintain loyalty.” Yet, his conception of the importance of loyalty is devoid of any content: “Because when people are loyal to each other, that’s very meaningful.” Vincent has no real reason to maintain loyalty, just a vague sense that it is important. The real reason he convinces himself to leave without making a move on Mia is his fear that Marsellus will find out and maim or kill him, as earlier references to Tony “Rocky Horror” show.
Tony “Rocky Horror” fell four stories from his balcony through the glass roof of his greenhouse, apparently because Marsellus ordered it. According to rumor, passed on to Vincent by Jules, Marsellus had Tony “Rocky Horror” tossed off of his balcony because he gave Mia a foot massage. Mia denies this, but it sticks with Vincent, nevertheless. It is thus not loyalty which actually constrains Vincent, but the prohibitive danger of cuckolding his boss. Vincent has no ethical reservation about sleeping with Mia; his only concern is self-preservation. Vincent has no true ethical code, nothing by which to live other than the pursuit of pleasure–such as his heroin use–or the pursuit of power–such as working for a gangster.
The genius of the film’s non-linear structure is that it ends with Jules and Vincent each poised on the moment of choice–Jules rejecting his old life, Vincent reaffirming his violent, selfish lifestyle. By the film’s end, however, we already know that Vincent will soon die. This gives Vincent’s decision not to heed Jules’ example a sense of doom. While Jules decides to resign from Marsellus’ services, Vincent continues to work for Marsellus, and dies on his next assignment. He is killed by Butch, a boxer who double-crosses, and then later rescues, Marsellus, and whom Vincent was sent to kill. Vincent ironically tastes his own medicine as the man on whom the hit was put out kills the hit man. Vincent goes to Butch’s apartment, ready to kill him if the boxer returns there. Butch does return, seeking a watch that belonged to his great-grandfather, surprises Vincent, and shoots him with his own gun. One thinks of Ajax.
In the film’s final scene, the robbery at the diner, the full scope of Jules’ transformation–and how radically different he is from Vincent–becomes apparent. Jules offers the inept robbers the money in his wallet–$1,500–but will not part with the case belonging to Marsellus, which he and Vincent retrieved from Brett. This sparks a comically tense and tensely comical situation in which Jules holds a gun to one of the robbers, while trying to keep the other hysterical robber–Yolanda–calm enough not to shoot anyone.
Jules is more than happy to part with the money, as it is no longer as important to him as it used to be. Vincent, however, is less than thrilled about the situation. He says, “Jules, if you give this nimrod fifteen hundred bucks, I’m gonna shoot ’em on general principle.” To what “general principle” does Vincent refer? To his guiding principle of self-interest. Vincent cannot understand the compassion which Jules shows to the hapless robbers. From Vincent’s perspective, Jules has one of the robbers at gun point, and thus should not give up any of his money. For Jules, however, the money matters much less than his finding a way out of the situation without anyone being killed. The authoritative voice which Jules possesses, which he used to taunt and intimidate Brett early in the film, he now uses to maintain calm and preserve life.
Amid Yolanda’s periodic shrieking, Jules explains the change he has undergone. After reciting his speech for the robbers, this time without fury, Jules tries out a few interpretations. The first is a self-serving reading of the text: “Now I’m thinkin’, it could mean you’re the evil man. And I’m the righteous man. And Mr. .45 here, he’s the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness.” Jules’ second interpretation is an idealized, wish-fulfillment: “Or it could be you’re the righteous man and I’m the shepherd and it’s the world that’s evil and selfish.” Finally, Jules’ dismisses these first two interpretations–more eisegesis than exegesis–as the fantasies they are. His third interpretation abandons self-justification: “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 tryin’. I’m tryin’ real hard to be a shepherd.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PeyiU3uWJ8
The robbers are “the weak” for obvious reasons: they are lazy cowards. They cannot or will not work real jobs; they are only robbing the diner because they think it will be easy money. In the film’s opening scene, they discuss how restaurant managers and waiters will not endanger themselves to stop a robbery.
Jules rightly sees himself as a representative of the “tyranny of evil men.” He acknowledges his guilt as a murderer, and recognizes that gangsters like Marsellus Wallace need henchmen to enact their will. Jules’ new motto is to try “real hard to be the shepherd.” He embraces the role of guiding others, beginning with the robbers of the diner. He chooses to be for others, while Vincent remains committed only to his own interests.
The character of the Shepherd is a particularly robust biblical archetype. Israel’s patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were shepherds. So, too, was King David, Israel’s greatest king and the forebear of the Messiah (See 2 Samuel 7). By the time of the prophet Jeremiah, the image of the shepherd was a well established figure of leadership. The people of Israel are described as sheep, and their leaders as shepherds. In Jeremiah, Israel’s shepherds–its priests and kings–are generally castigated for failing to lead the people properly:
“Wail, you shepherds, and cry out, and roll in ashes, you lords of the flock, for the days of your slaughter and dispersion have come, and you shall fall like a choice vessel. No refuge will remain for the shepherds, nor escape for the lords of the flock” (Jeremiah 25:34-35).
Even as Jeremiah criticizes Israel’s current shepherds, he also foretells the emergence of better shepherds who will lead the people in righteousness. This passage also reiterates God’s promise to send the Messiah, a king who will rule from David’s throne and deliver the people from their enemies:
“Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the LORD. ‘Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land'” (Jeremiah 23:3-5).
One cannot be a good shepherd without a powerful voice. Sheep have poor vision and get lost easily, so they learn to follow the shepherd’s voice. As Jesus says, “The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers” (John 10:3-5). In his role as the Good Shepherd, Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27).
Jules’ voice makes him uniquely suited to the role of the shepherd. Throughout the film’s final scene, Jules controls the situation with his voice:
Jules: “So, we cool Yolanda? We ain’t gonna do anything stupid, are we?”
Yolanda (crying) “Don’t you hurt him.”
Jules: “Nobody’s gonna hurt anybody. We’re gonna be like three Fonzies. And what’ Fonzie like? C’mon Yolanda, what’s Fonzie like?”
Yolanda (through tears, unsure): “He’s cool?”
Jules: “Correct-amundo! And that’s what we’re gonna be, we’re gonna be cool.”
When Vincent returns from the bathroom to see Yolanda pointing a gun at Jules, and Jules pointing his gun at the other robber, he is ready to intervene. Only with his commanding voice does Jules prevent either Vincent or Yolanda from opening fire: “It’s cool, Vincent! It’s cool! Don’t do a goddamn thing. Yolanda, it’s cool baby, nothin’s changed. We’re still just talkin’.”
To be a good shepherd, one must also be willing to risk oneself to protect one’s sheep. When David tells Saul that he will fight the Philistine giant, Goliath, Saul protests that David is too young to challenge such a skilled warrior. David counters that he “used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him” (1 Samuel 17:34-35). To be a shepherd requires defending the flock from predators.
David was literally a shepherd before he became king and, as king, he was figuratively a shepherd over the people. Like his ancestor, David, Jesus not only adopted the role of the shepherd, but also was willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of his flock. Jesus declares, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Humanity is Jesus’ flock: he “saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36).
The call which Jules hears to the shepherd’s vocation demands both a powerful voice and a willingness to sacrifice one’s life for others. Jules, it seems, has both.
Sources:
Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly. All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age. New York: Free Press, 2011.
http://handsomecitizens.com/2013/09/05/the-year-is-1994-pulp-fiction-unleashed-itself-upon-the-world/
