Loneliness and Alienation
Travis is isolated from the outside world, shielded from the city by the windows of his taxi. He rarely engages in real conversation with his riders. Even when he speaks with people, he isn’t really holding a conversation, but rather ranting about his grievances. When looking at his riders, he only does so through his rear-view mirror. Travis is isolated and cut off from the world, a veteran who cannot sleep and simply wants to fill the hours of the day.
Travis's extreme infatuation with Betsy, and negative reaction when she rejects him, shows how desperately he does not want to be alone. Travis’ feelings of alienation are what cause his hatred of the city, and cause his spiral into vigilantism. Without a social world to keep him grounded or remind him what to live for, he spirals into his own myopic self-righteousness.
The themes of loneliness and alienation in this film come directly from the writer’s own experiences. When writing the film, Schrader was homeless and depressed. He has said that he wrote the script to reflect his feelings and experiences of trying to survive alone in the city. Schrader stated that his loneliness had a profound effect on his life, causing him to spiral into depression. Travis reflects this loneliness, and a desire for connection, even though he is ill-equipped to connect.
The Ubiquity of Violence
When driving through the city, Travis is immersed in violence. He sees fights, a gang of young men throw eggs at his car, Iris get pulled out of his cab by her pimp, and theft and crime abound. Throughout the beginning of the movie, Travis rails against the "filth" of the city streets and reviles the seedy, violent, law-breaking people whom he sees commit these acts of violence. He claims to want to help the city, and deliver it to a cleanly, law-abiding glory. However, Travis’s desire to "get rid of" the city's less savory population and "cleanse" the city, is in fact the most violent force in the movie.
A discharged marine, Travis has been trained to hunt for a fight and to fight to win. The longer he spends witnessing the corruption of New York City, the more he starts to feed off of it, even though he claims to abhor it. His way of "cleaning up" the city is ultimately violent and inhumane. The shootout is his way of getting rid of the law-breaking pimps and johns and saving Iris, but he must shed a lot of blood, and traumatize the young Iris in the process. The fact that he attempts to save the world through cold-blooded murder, and that the city applauds him for it, shows just how ubiquitous and acceptable violence really is in the world of Taxi Driver.
Gender: Madonna-Whore & Toxic Masculinity
The only two women who play speaking roles in the film are Betsy and Iris. Both serve as archetypes, two ends of the classic madonna-whore spectrum. While Betsy represents purity to Travis, Iris represents the whore, the corruption of purity. He views Betsy as a perfect, almost divine girl-next-door. Iris, on the other hand, is a poor girl who has lost her innocence. Both women serve as catalysts for Travis’ character development, but their inner lives remain a mystery to the viewer.
While Betsy and Iris represent Travis's perception of femininity, Travis himself exhibits a perversely exaggerated version of classically masculine traits, to the point of toxicity. The plot is driven by Travis's repressed obsession with sex (as exemplified by his relationship with Betsy and his constant porn consumption), paternalistic need to protect women (both Betsy and Iris), tendency towards extreme violence, and a refusal to be self-reflective or emotionally honest. These traits reflect his desire to be a masculine man, unsoftened by the city or the countercultures that surround him, and alarmingly un-self aware.
Intent vs. Action
Travis’s entire character is depicted as a contradiction. He claims to vehemently hate the filth of the city, yet chooses to spend all of his time driving a taxi in the seediest parts of it, interacting with prostitutes and drug dealers. When he begins exercising frequently towards the middle of the movie, he says in voiceover that he wants to only be healthy and help his body, but we continually see him popping pills and drinking beer. Even though he wants to protect Betsy's purity, he takes her to a porno for their second date. It appears that, when Travis wants or believes something in his mind, his unconscious consistently chooses the opposite.
Travis's conflict between his desire and the actions he takes plays a major role in his transformation into a justice-seeking vigilante as well. After Betsy’s rejection, Travis starts viewing himself as an avenging angel: for the young prostitute, Iris, and for the city itself, even though he continues to act in violent, contradictory ways. He watches an interview with Palantine intently on his television, seeming to respond to the politician's call to arms, but he later attempts to assassinate him. He saves Iris from the violence of sexual slavery, by subjecting her to a bloodbath of gun violence that leaves her sobbing inconsolably.
Travis's actions are incredibly violent, and mirror the actions of the criminals that he so despises. In the end, Travis becomes a poster child for the very corruption that he hopes to combat.
Purity and Innocence
Travis is an incredibly world-weary and corruptible individual, having served as a marine in Vietnam and now barely scraping by as a New York City cabbie. As a result, he is obsessed with innocence, which is why he attaches so firmly to the figure of Betsy. Based on looks alone, Betsy seems to Travis to represent everything that he does not have access to, and to hold the key to his salvation. If he is able to possess Betsy, Travis believes, he will be able to find the softness and the innocence that will deliver him from the grit of the city.
Additionally, Iris is another symbol of purity for Travis, even if hers is disgracefully compromised by her status as a child prostitute. The primary motivating force behind all of Travis's obsessions is his desire to protect and restore purity to the beautiful woman he encounters. Travis wants so badly to restore Iris's lost innocence, that he is willing to die for it. Much like the soldier sacrifices his life in order to retain and reinstate the honor of his nation, Travis seeks to play out this dynamic with Iris.
Prostitution
Prostitutes abound in the New York of Taxi Driver, and seem to represent the widespread corruption of the entire city. While Travis would like to think that the world holds precious certain ideals, prostitutes remind Travis that in New York, everything has a price, and nothing is sacred. Prostitution serves as a perfect target for Travis' hatred of the forces that, he believes, conspire to to steal and corrupt women. While Travis does not quite know how to treat a woman respectfully, he remains confident that he is not nearly as evil as the pimps that exploit young girls for a quick paycheck.
Political Process vs. Vigilantism
Palantine, the presidential candidate, plays an important role in the film. He is Betsy's boss, and so Travis consequently becomes obsessed with him after his failed second date with Betsy. Palantine touts the importance of the participation of the general public in government and encourages the people to "rise up" to enact change. He is a man of the people, promising to advocate for workers and to help the everyman. However, his campaign does not quite reach a wayward veteran like Travis, and his platform doesn't speak to him. Travis's interest in him is only connected to his obsession with Betsy.
Travis's own political viewpoint is far more immediate and less abstract. While he does not know much about democratic politics or the electoral process, he feels passionately about the injustices he witnesses around him. Struggling for a political or rhetorical language to explain his stance, Travis rants about his desire to "clean up" the city, which one suspects has a racist, homophobic, and misogynistic subtext. In the absence of political language, Travis takes his politics into his own hands, buying guns and seeking to enact justice through violence on the micro-level.
