Taxi Driver

The Theme of Isolation in Taxi Driver:

In the film, a lot of Travis's opinions and actions can be traced back to isolation, or perhaps they are cause because of it. This isolation is shown a couple of ways throughout the movie: firstly, the cab. To almost everyone that rides in his cab, Travis is just the back of a head. He's not really there to them, and he's only able to watch his customers through the rearview mirror.

Another way is through Travis' interactions with people who should, by the looks of it, be his friend. Even coworkers, other cab drivers, Travis sat significantly farther away from them than was necessary. It makes him blatantly unsocial, and shows that not only is he isolated, he's that way because he wants to be.

The only true connection Travis had throughout the entirety of the film was with Iris, which only proves to show how important she was to him. She was the only person worth saving to him; Betsy was given up on fairly quickly, but not Iris. Travis' isolation makes this 12 year old seem that much more important in turn, and helps the storyline as a whole.