Eric Mustin

Ms. Jacobs
English 30
November 16, 2006

Pulp Fiction Seinfeld and Gift Giving

“The way your dad looked at it, this watch, was your birthright, he’d be damned
if any gooks gonna put their greasy yellow hands on his boy’s birthright, so he hid it, in
one place he knew he could hide something: his ass. Five long years he wore this watch,
up his ass, then, he died of dysentery, he gimme the watch, I hid this uncomfortable hunk
of metal up my ass two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family, and
now, Little man, I give the watch to you. (Pulp Fiction)”

Everybody owns something of sentimental value. Whether it’s the tarnished

silver locket that gathers dust in the jewelry case, the tattered teddy bear a child clutches

with vise-like determination, or even the centuries old wrist-watch that your father hid up

his ass in a Vietnam POW camp, everyone owns a few items whose personal worth far

exceed any price they’d be sold at. For the character Butch(played by Bruce Willis) in

the movie Pulp Fiction, and many others, these items are referred to as priceless, not so

much because their monetary price is so infinitely high as to be indefinable(although

there are certain items, like the Mona Lisa, who fit such a category) ,but because their

value exists outside the realm of price, instead derived from their emotional significance.

For Butch the watch’s family history gives it importance, but it doesn’t always have to be

to such an extreme. Even if an object isn’t considered priceless, it will always hold a

degree of emotional attachment which affects how a person values the item. Sometimes

this effect is positive, sometimes it’s negative, and sometimes it’s insignificantly small,

but the effect is there none the less. What is noteworthy about the intangible sentimental

value placed on objects though, is that in a dual role, these objects will also always exist
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in a tangible world with a precisely quantifiable value. Although to Butch his watch is

priceless, a typical pawn shop would only offer him about fifty bucks for it. Although to

a child their favorite Teenage-Mutant-Ninja-Turtle action figure may be invaluable, it’s

also sold at $4.99 at the Wal-Mart down the street. Even for rare or random items,

markets like Ebay exist which attempt to define their worth. Our world has an increasing

obsession with determining worth. So why is it that, even though we live in this world

defined by precise quantification of value, sentimentality, an ambiguous and intangible

idea, still manages to have such an over-riding importance? To what degree and to what

significance does sentimentality have in our modern day culture?

There’s no better study of sentimental value than the act of Gift-Giving. This is

because gift-giving is one of the few activities that can gauge the effect of emotional

attachment. Gift giving has always been extremely cherished, because it is forced to exist

in both the tangible and intangible. Not only must we, as gift-givers, attempt to

understand how much sentimental value the recipient will place upon the gift, we must

also take into account the material cost it will be to us. And often, since we live in an

imperfect world with imperfect information, we fail in choosing a good gift which the

recipient values as much as the price tag warrants. In fact, we fail quite often, often

enough that it is noticeable through studies. In “The Deadweight Loss of Christmas”

Thomas Woldfogel finds that “gift giving destroys between 10 percent and a third of the

value of gifts”(Woldfogel, 1). In other words, our community is so bad at getting gifts

that our recipients enjoy them almost one third less than the price would imply. So then

why is gift giving, throughout history, been such an integral part of our culture? For

example, why would some of our most important holidays, like Birthdays, Valentines
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Day, and Christmas, integrate the act of gift-gift when it is such a wasteful activity?

Clearly, it is because a role other than tangible value plays a factor in determining it’s

significance. It is because society understands how much difficulty and effort is required

to satisfy gift-giving’s inherent complexity. Society realizes that, it’s the thought, the

sentimental value, that counts. And concerning it’s role in holidays, gift-giving reflects

the importance of what the holidays signify. Just as a young Butch might not have liked

or valued the watch at first, he still cherished the gift because it represented a rich, and

emotionally important, history.

Sentimental Value is also something that can’t be compensated for by over-

compensating monetarily. In gift-giving there is a recent cultural phenomenon which

tries to achieve this: The Gift-Certificate. The gift-certificate is, in essence, a cash

transfer with restrictions. It attempts to solve the problem of imperfect information

which results in the “Deadweight Loss” that exists between the amount people pay for a

gift and the amount to which people value them (Waldfogel). By letting the recipient

pick out the gift, it achieves this, but only to a degree. That is because the gift-certificate

can only be applied toward situations where emotional attachment isn’t warranted, when

the gift exists only as a formality of the social contract we abide by. Bosses give gift-

certificates to employees they know only by last name, Mailmen get gift-certificates from

home-owners when December rolls around. But when used in more substantial

relationships, as was the case in the Seinfeld Episode “The Deal”, it fails to achieve the

effect that a gift should. In this episode, Jerry and Elaine are engaged in a relationship on

the sexual and emotional level, although they are trying to keep the two separate by

making a deal about certain rules they have to adhere to. However, when Elaine’s
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birthday rolls around, Jerry attempts to give Elaine $182 in cash so as not to break any of

the rules. Elaine of course hates the gift, instead preferring Kramer’s gift of a homemade

bench, since the bench reflects effort and deliberation on Kramer’s behalf. Although

Jerry’s gift ensured it would be of equal value to what Elaine hoped for, it couldn’t make-

up for the fact that it lacked any sentimental worth.

Pulp Fiction understands this concept perfectly. Before Captain Koons gives

Butch his father’s watch, he makes sure Butch understands it’s history. He goes into

great detail explaining that the watch was “first purchased by your great grand-father,

during the first World War”, then worn by his grandfather until he was “killed, along

with all the other marines, at the battle of Wake Island”, and even the name of the

stranger, “Mr. Winake”, who returned it to his father, who wore it while in captivity in

Vietnam, and passed it along to Captain Koons when he died. Although it may come off

as superfluous, the emotionally deep history that the watch carries with it is what makes

Butch hold onto it, even though that emotion can’t be fully explained. There is no gift-

certificate that could equal the hardship of having a watch hidden up your ass for seven

years, and there is no price that can be put on the sentimental value of some things. Pulp

Fiction takes this idea one step further too, because the symbol of the watch first appears

when the, now adult, Butch decides to maintain his pride by refusing to throw a boxing

match, even though he’s given money to do so. The movie understands that there is a

distinctive, yet indefinable, importance placed on emotional attachment, which can’t be

explained in tangible terms.

When I turned thirteen I, like just about every other Jewish kid I knew, had a Bar-

Mitzah. And in the goings of a self-absorbed suburban Jewish family, my parents had an
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over-the-top party to celebrate. They invited family, friends, family of friends, friends of

family, until the guest list felt as though it bulged at the paper’s edge. Of course, not

everyone who was invited could, or wanted, to attend, and they made their intentions

clear by checking a little box that stated “Sorry, I will not be able to attend” on an index

sized card that they RSVP’d with. Some sent accompanying checks, others

congratulatory letters, and then there was one person, a 2nd-cousin whom I’d never met

before, that sent me a sterling silver Star of David and accompanying note explaining it’s

significance. It struck me as rare that someone who had nothing to do with me, other

than a few specks of blood, would take the time and effort to pick out a gift that meant

something to me on that occasion. Now, looking back on that whole Bar-Mitzah

experience, I can’t remember a word of my Torah portion, or who gave me the most

expensive present, or who wrote the nicest card, but the one image I do remember vividly

is the Star of David from my 2nd-cousin, who I’ll most likely never hear from again.

Whether it’s Pulp Fiction, Seinfeld, or my own little microcosmic life, sentimental-value

is worth looking for, and holding onto, in our world.

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WORKS CITED

Pulp Fiction. Dir. Quentin Tarantino Perf. Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, and Bruce

Willis. 1994.

Waldfogel, Joel. "The Deadweight Loss of Christmas." The American Economic Review

Dec(1993): 1328.