'The Other' is a theme, motif or figure which seems to appear over and over in the movie. It could be nature, women, other races, other cultures, homosexuals, criminals, rulers, Gods, monsters, etc. In the film, the protagonist becomes just like 'The Other' in order to resolve the problem. Usually, 'The Other' is killed by the protagonist at the end of the movie. 'The Other' is always the victim in the movie, it is a scapegoat: it is the focus of the resolution of the problems. In 'Taxi Driver', 'The Other', according to me, is two elements: women an criminals (gangsters). In the beginning of the film, the protagonist, Travis Bickle falls in love with a woman who works for Palantine as a volunteer. After going out with each other for a couple of times, the woman decides not to see Travis again. Travis says that she's just like the others, meaning just like all the other women.
Travis Bickle
English: Graffiti of Travis Bickle ("Taxi Driver")...
"Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywh...In order to take revenge, he tries to assassinate Palantine in front of her. 'The other' also appears as gangsters in the movie. Travis, in order to eliminate them, becomes a criminal just like them. Therefor in 'Taxi Driver',we see two good examples of 'The Other'.
In 'Taxi Driver' we see that Travis Bickle still has an identity forming problem, or I might say that he has unconsciously formed an identity during his childhood, but he's trying to find it. It was his curiosity about his identity that was giving him problems to sleep. Basically, his identity should be formed based on his father's identity, but nothing is obvious. Whoever his (Travis) model was, planted the confidence in Travis to form his identity. For example, if our parents don't tell us in early our childhood about a certain quality that...