Robocop - Loss of Identity

As I look back on the concept of the loss and regaining of Murphy's identity, one significant detail that struck me since the first time I ever saw Robocop was the scene in which Murphy tries to shoot the jars of baby food, eventually succeeding with the help of Lewis. The reason I mention this is because the very act of shooting the jars of baby food to me resembles a loss of innocence, the bursting of a bubble of ignorance. Regardless of the fact that Murphy is a cop, his life as a family man emits the sense that he had always been living in a happy little bubble, away from the dangers of Detroit and the reality he currently lives in. Destroying those jars helps to realize even more that he is slowly stepping away from the more surreal world he used to live in, and into the reality he was forced into by his "killers". Although the only thing that truly restrains him is system, which orders him to remain a cop, if Murphy still had a body, he would take action into his own hands whenever he would feel compelled to do so. These emotions within him is apparent when he first confronts Clarence Boddicker as a cyborg.

Of course, to gain something, one must give up something.

This very same scene, however, could also be interpreted as something more positive, more of a release from the restraints holding him back [his cyborg body, the realization that he is actually human, OCP], despite the fact that his robotic body weighs him down internally. It is what the people at OCP feed him because in his current condition, he cannot eat solid foods. By shooting the jars, he is slowly stepping away from being a mere corporate cyborg who gets fed baby slop, to regaining [somewhat] an identity as an actual human being, and no longer belonging to anyone.