According to Joseph Campbell, there is a series of stages to the journey of the hero in mythology, a journey that is repeated in literature and drama in various ways which mirror these stages from mythology. Campbell says that mythology is worldwide and that every culture has its story and legends which are passed down through generations. The stories from different times and places have similarities showing that they share the same themes, character types, and symbols--the same archetypes. The schemata of stages in the hero quest can be applied to the hero of any work to see how well that hero fits the pattern, and here we will apply it to an unusual film, Taxi Driver, whose anti-hero is a full-fledged hero in terms of the hero quest and the stages of his journey, though in somewhat deliberately ironic terms.
Much of the first part of the film is taken up with the first stage on the journey--the conception, initiation, and preparation of the hero. The look of the film evokes a sense of a world that is out of kilter with what it should be. The taxi moves through the streets of the city in slow motion, gliding from one darkened area to another, passing through steam rising from the street in a visual evocation of hell. This is a world of danger--there is always a sense of violence just around the corner, and it is this sense of the violence in the night that attracts the movie's protagonist, Travis Bickle, to his job as cab driver. In that job, he is able to pass unnoticed through the streets of the city and observe. He watches the world go by as he drives through the streets, and he observes aspects of human nature in his rear-view mirror, placed so he can see into the back seat and watch his passengers. This is his time of preparation, of learning about the city, of seeing the degradation that the city offers. He travels through the city, but he does not see himself as part of the city. He is on a journey of discovery fr...