Vincent Vega (John Travolta) from Pulp Fiction is one of many great characters in the film. Despite his immense popularity, there has been little in the way of analysis done on Vincent Vega. Thus, this article will attempt to analyze Vincent Vega by arguing that as a character he represents reason.

How Does Vincent Vega Represent Reason?

Pulp Fiction is probably the truest attempt at a post-modern film in that it explores how different ways of approaching the world are all relevant. It does this by assigning all the main characters with a concept or idea, of which Vincent Vega’s is reason. Basically, Vincent uses logic as his primary tool for comprehending the world. Herein, the manner in which he represents reason will be revealed.

Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield

The very first the audience sees of Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield (Samuel Jackson) is near the beginning of the film where the two characters are discussing the difference between nations, namely cultural difference. Vincent Vega does this by using something that many countries have in common, namely McDonalds, to identify differences in mass consumer taste.

The audience then witnesses a scene in which Jules and Vincent discuss how they are underarmed for their mission. Jules uses his intuition to decide that they are underarmed, whereas Vincent analyses the amount of people involved and then decides that they are underarmed. In other words, Vincent needs the information in order to make a decision via logic and reason. On the way to the room in which their potential enemies are, Vincent and Jules discuss Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) as well as her husbands supposed extreme overreaction to someone having massaged her feet. Vincent attempts to reason through the situation by getting the details, whereas Jules just goes with his innate view that giving someone a foot massage is harmless and has no romantic overtures. Vincent then acts very similar to how Socrates might have by asking if Jules would give a man a foot massage, a question to which Jules strong negative reaction proves Vincent’s point.

The last argument that Jules and Vincent have is in concern to a gunman firing at the two of them and missing with every bullet. Jules runs a spiritual argument, he feels it was a miracle and thus to him it is. Vincent argues that it was just a freak occurrence and cites a documentary that he saw in which a police officer used all his ammo but missed, in other words Vincent has a logical argument and Jules an intuitive one. Where all of this is particularly interesting is when Vincent dies for if the audience takes the side of logic then Vincent died because his partner left him, whereas if the audience takes Jules’ side then Vincent died because he ignored the miracle.

Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace

Vincent’s logical view on the world surfaces on his date with Mia Wallace. At the very start of the date they are discussing the price of a drink in comparison to its value, with Vincent trying to analyze the ingredients to figure out if it should cost what it does. When the drink arrives, Vincent’s logical curiosity causes him to desire a taste in order to figure out why it costs so much. Following this, Vincent attempts to get to the bottom of the foot massage issue by essentially interviewing Mia, in other words he seeks information concerning an event in a logical way. When the date ends and he takes Mia back to her house, Vincent goes to the bathroom to logically analyze the situation rather than being caught up in his emotions.

Vincent Vega and The Bathroom

One of the themes relating to Vincent Vega’s use of logic and reason is that whenever he does not have information concerning a situation, the situation then becomes bad for him. This theme is employed via Vincent’s use of the bathroom, at which times he does not have access to information concerning the situation outside and thus it turns bad. The first example of this is when, on his date with Mia, he goes to the bathroom only to return and find her in a rather poor state. The second example is in the diner, in which he goes to the bathroom and returns to find Jules in a situation with two thieves. The last example is where he returns from the bathroom to be gunned down by Butch (Bruce Willis).

Related Articles:

Pulp Fiction Meaning Analysis
Butch Coolidge (Honor)
Marsellus Wallace (Authority)
Mia Wallace (Mystery and the Unknown)
Jules Winnfield (Religion and Spirituality)