Time
In the world of Pulp Fiction, timing is everything. Tarantino intentionally disorients the audience by showing the events of the film out of order—most obviously, beginning with the final scene in the diner—without any subtitles or title cards to explain when the film is flashing forward and backward in time (with the notable, comic exception of the Wolf's arrival at Jimmie's, which takes place exactly "nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds later"). As a result, the audience must deduce the order in which the events of the film take place. Unfortunate timing dooms many of the film's characters, such as Vincent, who chooses to use the bathroom at three separate points at unlucky moments, and Butch, who stops at an intersection at the exact moment his arch-nemesis Marsellus is crossing the street. Through the theme of time and timing, especially bad timing, Tarantino forces his archetypal, "stock" characters to confront ludicrous and unpredictable situations.
Fate
After they are miraculously unharmed by a hail of bullets, Jules and Vincent have an extended philosophical argument over the nature of the universe. Jules believes that they survived due to an act of "divine intervention," and tries to persuade Vincent that God has spared them for a reason. Vincent, on the other hand, believes that they were just lucky. Their disagreement suggests a larger debate about fate versus free will: whether mankind is subject to higher forces, or whether life's events unfold spontaneously and according to no particular plan. Significantly, Jules, who recognizes the act as a "miracle" and pledges to give up criminal life, survives the film, whereas Vincent, who refuses to acknowledge the "miracle," dies under extremely unlucky circumstances that Jules would also likely consider an act of "divine intervention."
Morality
Virtually every character in Pulp Fiction is implicated in some kind of criminal enterprise, whether as a perpetrator, an accomplice, or a witness. Tarantino represents crime and criminals in a morally neutral and highly aestheticized fashion, emphasizing the combination of glamour, squalor, and banality that typifies their lives. In addition to coolly performing executions and injecting hard drugs, the film's career criminals also bicker, whine, and make amateurish mistakes, undermining the hardboiled archetypes from which Tarantino draws their characterizations. Despite being criminals, many characters still experience moments of moral clarity, such as when Butch decides to rescue Marsellus, or when Jules rethinks his life as a gangster. In all these ways, Tarantino lends surprising moral dimensions to the "flat" stock characters (e.g. the mob boss, the corrupt boxer, the femme fatale) from bygone film genres about crime.
Style
Tarantino, himself a master of stylization, imbues every character in Pulp Fiction with an inimitable and eclectic personal aesthetic. Seemingly minor visual details like Jules's Jheri curl, Jody's piercings, and Lance's mounted high heel shoes lend each character a distinct personality, many of which reference stylistic touchstones from bygone eras. Vincent and Mia's dance scene at Jackrabbit Slim's serves little purpose other than being a vehicle for each of their styles as dancers and highlighting the personal chemistry between the two. Later in the film, Vincent's oafish, everyman qualities contrast with Winston Wolfe's curt, businesslike demeanor, suggesting the broad range of personalities that career criminals can inhabit. Discussing the difference between pigs and dogs in the final scene, Jules tells Vincent, "Personality goes a long way," a statement that also reflects the film's consistent and unapologetic elevation of style over substance.
Violence
In the highly aestheticized universe of Pulp Fiction, violence is an everyday yet unpredictable phenomenon, often reflecting the fundamentally unforeseeable and surprising nature of life itself. Tarantino conveys the casual, almost indifferent approach that the film's criminal characters take to violence in scenes like Pumpkin and Honey Bunny's first argument, Jules's first murder in Brett's apartment, and Vincent's accidental slaying of Marvin. Like almost everything else in the film, violent acts are also opportunities for style and creativity, such as Jules's decision to recite the Bible passage from Ezekiel 25:17 before every execution, which he confesses he only does because it "sounds like some cold-blooded shit." The threat of violence looms over all of the film's sub-plots, especially Vincent and Mia's date, given that Marsellus has allegedly had a man thrown off a balcony for touching her. The story of Butch and Marsellus's capture at the hands of Zed and Maynard also demonstrates that the characters who are most capable of brutality are still equally subject to it.
Fiction / Cinema
Critics have labeled Pulp Fiction a "postmodern" film and an example of meta-fiction. Meta-fiction refers to any work that calls attention to its own artificiality, or which takes as one of its subjects the very notion of fictive storytelling. The word "fiction" in the film's title, as well as the provided definition of the word "pulp" meaning a particular kind of lurid content printed on cheap paper, are early clues that the film will examine and repurpose the established tropes and characters of various preexisting film genres. The scene at Jackrabbit Slim's, filled with celebrity impersonators, is effectively a microcosm of American culture and cinema, which the film aims to deconstruct in numerous ways. By paying homage to specific films like Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and John Boorman's Deliverance, Tarantino weaves the history of cinema into the narrative itself, which celebrates unlikely and absurd occurrences, rather than conforming to any sort of realism.
Language
Language, both written and spoken, is a key component of Pulp Fiction's style. The film of course draws its title from a particular kind of lurid prose printed for mass consumption on cheap material. Each character speaks in a highly stylized vernacular, such as Pumpkin and Honey Bunny's British slang, Mia's hip lingo, or Marsellus's calm, precise syntax. Tarantino's dialogue often centers around trivial and irrelevant matters, such as Butch and Fabienne talking about the difference between a tummy and a potbelly, or Jules and Vincent talking about a "quarter-pounder with cheese," versus a "Royale with cheese." The insignificance of the subject matter is often secondary to the sheer enjoyability of the crackling tension and rapid-fire rhythm of the actors' delivery. Tarantino also employs monologues to great rhetorical effect, such as Jules's Ezekiel 25:17 speech, or Captain Koons's speech to a young Butch. As with nearly everything else in the film, language becomes a kinetic vehicle for style and expressivity.
