Morpheus: “I know exactly what you mean… Let me tell you why you’re here… You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain. But you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there; like a splinter in your mind; driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me… Do you know what I’m talking about?”
Neo: “…The Matrix?”* The "something" references to something mentioned earlier in the movie by Trinity. At an earlier point of the movie, Trinity says to Neo on their first meeting, "It's the question that drives us, Neo. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did." Morpheus' statement parallels Trinity's statement with regards to the "something", thus audience can already tell from connotation and from past knowledge of Neo's response to Trinity that Morpheus is talking about the Matrix. (SEM. Matrix)
** The above lexia raises a question as to what the "something" in the 3rd sentence is. We know "something" is referencing the nondescript word "Matrix" as argued above, but we do not know what the "Matrix" is. Morpheus keeps referencing it through multitudes of descriptions but does not reveal what it is, thus building suspense and allowing audience to ask the same question as Neo: What is the "Matrix"? (HER. Question -- What is the "Matrix"?)
*** (ACT. "To feel that there's something wrong in the world." : 1 : Bring Neo to Morpheus).
(ACT. "Driving Neo mad" : 2 : Bring Neo to Morpheus)
(ACT. "Brought you to me..." : 3 : Bring Neo to Morpheus)
Morpheus: “Do you want to know What It Is?”* The capital letters on "What It Is?" are not mistakes. (When Morpheus says those words, each word is emphasized) By making those individual words stand out, it creates more suspense as to the revelation of the "Matrix". At this point, the audience is practically begging to know "What is the Matrix?" (HER. Question -- What is the Matrix?)
** The word "want" in that question gives Neo the choice to know or not know what the Matrix is. By giving him the choice, there is a connotation that the answer may not be something normal people want to know; it almost adds an element of possible horror to the impending answer. (SEM. Answer is hard to accept)
(Neo nods)* "It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." Not only is this a great variation on the idiom of having a "wool pulled over your eyes", this answer to the original question of "What is the Matrix?" leads us to the bigger question of "What is the truth?" (which is asked by Neo soon afterwards). (HER. "What is the truth?")
Morpheus: “The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window; or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work…when you go to church…when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.”
** The whole idea of having a "world that... blind you from the truth" is only the beginning of the resulting product of the inspiration from Jean Beaudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation. In Simulacra and Simulation, Beaudrillard discusses four successive stages of image, the third of which fits the Matrix: "It masks the absence of a basic reality." Later in the movie, we learn that the Matrix is actually a simulated world, a copy of what the real world was like in the past. The Matrix is essentially a simulation that claims represent what is real to the human minds, but is not. (REF. Jean Beaudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation)
Neo: “What truth?”* "... born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison, for your mind." In the year 1999, the Internet spread and was becoming more and more sophisticated. It was when everyone had become acquainted with the Internet. (And babies born during this time would be "born into the Internet" as the Internet was clearly not some trendy fad -- it was here to stay) But there were a lot of scare with regards to the Internet in the beginning, and the Wachowski brothers may have been referencing and exaggerating it as the intangible prison. (REF. Internet)
Morpheus: “…That you are a slave Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage; born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison, for your mind… Unfortunately, no one can be, told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.
* "You stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes..." This quote is a direct reference to Lewis Caroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. (REF. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
(Morpheus takes out the two pills, one in each fist)
Morpheus: “This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back.”
(He opens his left palm before Neo…)
“You take the blue pill: The story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.” (He opens his right palm before Neo…) “You take the red pill: You stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes…”
(Neo reaches for the red pill, but just before he takes it…)
Morpheus: “Remember: All I’m offering is The Truth – nothing more…”
