What if your hero doesn't know what they want?

Last week, my mentor Michael Hauge shared a piece on whether or not a visible goal can change over the course of a story. In short, the answer is yes, but he clarified that goals don’t so much “change” as they evolve. As the hero blazes ahead, the plot unfolds and they respond accordingly. 

But there are edge cases, too, where the hero’s goal changes, or remains murky, because they themselves are unreliable, delusional, erratic and unsure. 

Take Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) of TAXI DRIVER, a disturbed loner who suffers from insomnia. I recently watched this classic for the first time (I know, I know) and was struck by how nebulous the goal felt from start to finish, and yet, I was gripped with suspense the entire time. 

So, how did they pull this off? I believe it all comes down to the interplay between the Hero’s Two Journeys. Let’s break it down. 

The Outer Journey

Travis Bickle wants to work the night shift as a cabbie. He figures that if he’s not sleeping, he might as well be making money. He boasts that unlike some drivers who get behind the wheel with their own agenda, he’s game to pick up anyone, anywhere. Now, this is not a reflection of his good will toward his fellow man–  

All the animals come out at night. Whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies…

-- but rather, a reflection of his aimlessness. And so we drift through the setup alongside him, experiencing the city through his rain-soaked windshield. We don’t know where we’re going - how could we? - our driver has no clue himself. 

And then he sees Betsy (Cyril Shepherd), in broad daylight, the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. After lurking outside her place of work, a political campaign office (Palantine for President!) he builds up the courage to ask her out for pie and coffee. 

The interaction feels so familiar, we could be in a rom-com, and for a moment, his goal is clear: get the girl. 

Then his courtship falls through, sending him into a freefall. From here on out, his visible goal is a moving target:

He tries to win back Betsy’s attention with flowers and phone calls, but to no avail.

He buys an arsenal of weapons, but with no clear target. 

He trains relentlessly, push-ups, pull-ups and crunches, but for what? 

He sets his sights on assassinating Senator Palantine. This must be the visible goal, we’re led to think. But then he becomes equally fixated on rescuing a young girl, Iris (Jodie Foster), from her pimp, so perhaps this is the goal instead. 

At one point he chats up a secret service agent tasked with protecting Palantine. Is he doing recon for his plot, or showing genuine interest in a job he’d love to hold? 

I believe that Bickle honestly does not know, and so neither can we. 

As we build towards the climax, we’re still not sure what that fateful moment might look like. Will he pull the trigger at the campaign event? Will he spring Iris from her cage? Or is this still just about getting the girl, Betsy, their first encounter the catalyst of the entire story? 

None of this should work. A hero without a stable goal should cause the story to collapse. So why does TAXI DRIVER feel so propulsive? Because beneath all that chaos is a steady undercurrent… 

The Inner Journey

As opaque as this story seems, the writer, Paul Schrader, lays out both Travis’ Inner Journey and his deeper struggle in his opening monologue: 

I don’t believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention. I believe that one should become a person like other people. But you know, loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores—everywhere. There’s no escape. I’m God’s lonely man.

This is what he’s driving towards. He wants to become a person, just like other people. It’s a beautiful, universal longing. 

But to do this, he must have the courage to be seen. The trailer puts an even finer point on this concept: It’s like you’re not even there, like a taxi driver don’t even exist. 

This, I argue, is what he both desires and fears: to be seen. Coupled together, what you have is an eloquent paradox: 

Travis wants to become a person, just like other people – to do this, he must step out of the shadows. 

That way he can blend back in with the rest of society – in a way, invisible again, but in a new light. 

Once you identify his inner struggle, staying hidden versus being seen, Bickle’s many goals become coherent: 

He wants to make a genuine connection with Betsy because he wants to be seen. 

He wants to assassinate her candidate for president because he wants to be seen. 

He wants to save Iris because he wants to be seen. 

We begin to notice the motif throughout the story:

• He lurks outside the campaign office, as if he thinks he’s invisible, and doesn’t approach Betsy until he’s spotted. (Note that Betsy’s office has wall to ceiling windows, right on the ground floor of a busy Manhattan intersection. Highly visible!) 

• He’s fascinated by the secret service, a job that, when done well, plays on both being there yet unseen; Bickle, as a would-be assassin, should want to remain invisible, and yet he’s so desperate to be acknowledged, he walks right up to the agent and strikes up a conversation. 

• He recognizes the plight of the sex worker, Iris, who works in a field that often renders girls invisible to wider society. 

Even Bickle’s famous, you talkin’ to me? scene is a play on whether some imagined foe is addressing him, or some other guy behind him – whether Travis is being overlooked, or seen. 

Travis Bickle, half behind the glass, half exposed

We see the conclusion of this struggle in the aftermath of his bloody assault on the pimp’s den:newspaper articles pinned to his wall, the headlines touting his heroism…  

Taxi Driver Battles Gangsters

Taxi Driver Hero to Recover

… the victory punctuated by a letter from Iris’ parents, thanking him for saving their daughter. 

But his journey isn’t complete until the next scene, where we see Travis’ transformation. 

Travis stands with his fellow cabbies on a street corner, “shooting the shit.” When it’s time for them to get back behind their respective wheels and drive off into the night, they say their goodbyes, acknowledging each other by their nicknames: 

Doughboy, Wizard, Killer. 

That last one, that’s Travis. In an earlier scene with his supposed peers, he hardly spoke a word, hardly even responded to his own name, not eager to be recognized. But now he’s Killer, the cabbie– 

He gets back to work and picks up his next fare. Lo and behold, it’s Betsy, beautiful as ever. She notes that she saw the headlines, impressed. He downplays them. Oh, it was nothing really, I got over that. Papers always blow these things up. 

After all, he doesn’t want to be a hero, but rather a person, just like other people. 

He drops her at her destination, declines payment like a gentleman, flashes his one true smile in the entire movie, and bids her so long as he drives back off into the night. 

This is the power of the Inner Journey. So long as all the chaos above the surface is an expression of something deeper, your story will feel powerful, purposeful, and whole.