By saving the conversion scene until the end, even at the expense of its chronology, the author gives it narrative finality while refusing to grant it reality in the world of the film. It is scarcely a new phenomenon in cinema to depict the master of violence as superior to the bourgeois living in a contemptible world of illusion. What I think is a new departure is the generation , out of this world of criminal violence, of not merely a macho code of honor among thieves , but the values of love and even religion . As readers of this column may already suspect, there is something originary about this. Popular culture differs from high culture by its naive appropriation of the sacrificial mechanism of ritual.
Crime stories are exemplary of popular literature.
We have all heard the cliche that the detective story reduces the world's problems to a single crime the solution of which expels the perturbing element and restores peace. Unfortunately this profound reflection fails to tell us in what way detective stories differ from art in general. But what we witness in Pulp Fiction is not the simple inversion of the values of the greater society, but their regeneration . And the act by which his conversion is expressed in the film is his peaceful resolution of the conflict with the robbers of the luncheonette where he and Travolta are dining. Needless to say, this charitable act excludes from consideration the robbed and humiliated customers who cower on the floor throughout this dialogue.