Taxi Driver

In Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle is a somewhat unpredictable character. He makes the audience, as well as some characters, uneasy. We only see glimpses of it at first in the form of his poor social skills (movie with Betsy), but it escalates throughout the film. He becomes more violent, buys guns, and changes his hair style drastically. This change climaxes during the shootout in the hotel. In his mind, he is doing this to help Iris, and the fight is quite brutal. It is interesting that the city hailed him as a hero, when if he did not mess up, he would have shot Palantine. It was still the same Travis in both those situations, so he is being called a hero even though he may not really be one. Also, the final scene brings up several questions. My first thought was that Travis was still in a coma, and this was just how he hoped things would play out. It is left open ended, but there is also a good chance that the "old" not hero, regular cab driver Travis is there.

Does you think that even though Travis goes through many changes mentally, that there are still parts of him that are the same taxi driver that we see in the beginning of the movie?