Dialogue In Pulp Fiction

If there is one thing that Quentin Tarantino is known for, it is his brilliant use of dialogue. In Pulp Fiction particularly, he does not just use conversations as a tool for advancing the plot, but he also as a way to establish characters’ motivations and identities. Pulp Fiction is a crime movie that binds together the stories of the hitmen Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson), along with their boss Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) and his wife Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman), and boxer Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis). The movie uses unorthodox changes between time and location of the film to tell all of their stories in a more engaging way. The characters’ motivations in Pulp Fiction could never truly be understood

Tarantino uses dialogue not as a tool but as the focal point to building each character’s personality. The conversation between Tim Ross’ and Amanda Plummer’s unnamed characters at the beginning of the film about robbing a store reveals everything the viewer needs to know about each of them. The man starts by saying “No, forget it, it 's too risky. I 'm through doin ' that shit”, but eventually the women coerces him into agreeing to committing a robbery showing that she is in control. Also in this scene, the women sharply changes her personality multiple times through her speech, establishing her as mentally unstable. For example, she appears empathetic and kind when she thanks the waitress compared to her seeming apathetic and aggressive when she takes out her gun. Perhaps in no scene was the dialogue more revealing of the characters than when hitmen, Vincent and Jules’, were driving towards their boss with a passenger in their car discussing their miraculous survival. Vincent starts by lightly saying “Ever seen that show "cops?" I was watchin ' it once and this cop was on it who was talkin ' about this time he got into this gun fight with a guy in a hallway. He unloads on this guy and he doesn 't hit anything. And these guys were in a hallway. It 's a freak, but it happens” showing that he doesn’t believe surviving an attack meant anything specific. Jules, however, responded by saying “If you wanna play blind man, then go walk with a Shepherd. But me, my eyes are wide fuckin ' open”. Jules uses biblical references to convey that he is a determinist, believing that everything happens for a reason, whereas it is made for the viewer to believe that Vincent is an existentialist, believing that the world was devoid of meaning. Tarantino uses simple conversation between character as the main resource for knowing