From Mr. Chips to Scarface
Vince Gilligan calls Breaking Bad a narrative about change. He stated that chemistry was the study of matter but saw it more as the study of change. Therefore, he promised the audience that he would change Mr. Chips becomes Scarface. Walter went from good to bad based on that. When Walter becomes violent in the pilot episode after standing up to his son against the bully, Walter’s face is that of a man who has just realized something about himself.
Surprisingly, he felt happy. Therefore, Breaking Bad questions how good Walter White was from the start and what changed in him. In the pilot episode, we see big and small insults upsetting one man, one job that disappoints, another even worse job, and vegetarian meat on his birthday. He is not the wrong person. However, he is also submissive. He lets his brother-in-law make fun of him, his students do not respect him, and his boss is always rude.
Taking everything, however, he turns the other cheek, but such virtue is passive. Walt is a very talented chemist, not only good through inaction. In addition, he contributed to science for which the Nobel Prize was awarded him. The fact that he also stares at the placard at five in the morning even more openly says little about his ego.
Chemical Reaction
When we first see him cooking crystal meth, the flair and ego Walt hinted at becomes clear. In the RV, he is a demanding, passionate, talented genius, a new man, and has found his strengths. Walt found control over his beliefs and existence, discovered what was missing from his life, and thought that his actions could change the world. He believed he could not go back, though. At first, captivated by his new agency tastes, Walt could not stand it alone, but he still could not.
More precisely, what brings the audience back to Walt’s expressions after the pilot is that we think about how Walt did not go from good to bad. He switched from indolence to action, letting Heisenberg out in the open but little by little until he finally identified himself as the danger. Walt became addicted not to drugs but to power when Walt entered the drug trade. In essence, he came up with reasons he made up so he could survive in a game that made him feel so strong, like an addict.
Even before he stopped, he always needed one more punch. Walt’s transformation feels like a chemical reaction, with Gilligan’s bruised ego boiling in panic from a life of intense stress and the combustible combination of immense unrealized potential.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
By the motive, everything is reacting in creating an unstoppable yet deadly explosion of violence catalyzed by a cancer diagnosis. When Heisenberg took over and Walter White quit, we would always be looking for a turning point. However, Heisenberg played the part of Walt. Heisenberg and Walter White are like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In the famous story of Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll created Mr. Hyde to temporarily restrain all the good within himself.
Like Walt, Heisenberg plays the monster within himself; unlike Walt’s personality, Heisenberg also has consistent personality traits. Both look very different, thanks to Bryan Cranston’s phenomenal performance playing the split yet fluid personality type. He always slipped between the father figures who became supervillains in twitches of chemical reactions. Heisenberg brought some aspects of Walt to the fore; he used his talents as a chemist in his chemist genius, and Heisenberg was always on the firm but strong side.
On the other hand, his ego and self-esteem are flashed. There was a Heisenberg glint in his eyes as people trampled on his dignity. However, his attraction to violence and the desire and agency for power became more lavish. Because hurting others to get what he wants is the most extreme form of agency, he is associated with the desire for power.
Duality of Personality
Although he expressed joy in violence, Heisenberg also felt joy in violence. Like Dr. Jekyll, Walt does not control the monster inside himself and learns he is in remission. His reflection on the dispenser’s cover was the face of the monster Walt had just come out of. At such a moment, Heisenberg appeared at an inopportune moment; he always threatened to blow Walt’s cover. Just as the duality of personality torments Dr. Jekyll, there was not a single moment when Walt definitively gave up Heisenberg.
He could have turned from a good guy into a monster in seconds every time he lost his powers. Although as far apart from each other as we might imagine, Breaking Bad makes audiences fearful of the thought that being good and being evil are not the same. Both are mirror images of humans; Walt is very different from other strong men in many media. His manhood has nothing to do with sexual prowess.
Walt was not a suave guy but a classic father who was not masculine. When his firmness first makes a famous appearance in layers, he is always on the go about things, very middle-aged, very particular, and chatty.
Glorifying Walter’s Morality
Walt’s fatherhood adds comic relief in offsetting his descent into darkness. At his peak as Heisenberg, Walt still had no strings attached. For example, Walt comes home and sexually assaults his wife, Skyler, after his altercation with Tuco. In art, many artists often depict sex as another dimension of power. A man must exercise his power over a woman when he is in power. So, the series shows Walt acting out society’s notions of strong, sexualized men.
Additionally, it resists nature to glorify Walt for his behavior from the first season to the end. Morally, audiences have always tolerated Walt’s choices, assuming that his thinking is that of a chemist who can make excellent meth, a meth dealer who can make much money quickly, can provide for his family, and has more life left to live. However, it is selfish to leave his family in poverty to run an empire business and convince Walt that he needs to cook crystal meth morally.
His actions are getting more complicated for us to justify with time. He remains deeply committed to explaining why he did what he was doing. He would take any justification, even from someone he did not respect. Walt was very good at lying to others, as Heisenberg did.
Crime and Punishment
However, he is best at lying to himself. Apart from convincing him that what he is doing is right, Heisenberg plays the devil that rests on Walt’s shoulders. Nevertheless, his conscience no longer pushes him back, so Heisenberg uses the mind game to hide from Walt. On the other hand, there is a literary reference, besides the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in looking at the psychology and philosophy of Walter White: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
In the book, Raskolnikov decides to kill an older woman. Because destiny gave him a sign for the good of society or the good of his family, he came up with many different reasons why he did it. In the end, he confessed that he only did it for himself. In the finale of Breaking Bad, Walt says the same thing as Raskolnikov, the same idea that plays into Walter’s philosophy and even Raskolnikov’s.
Both define crossing a dangerous line, opening a door, and getting shot—however, the desire for power drives Walt. In the end, he was left with nothing. His cancer returned, his empire was just an illusion, his family wanted nothing to do with him, and he lost his money.
Myth of Walter White
However, Walt was not wholly broken inside and out. In the first season, he must find out where his real power lies, not about empire or money. Both can disappear at any time, except for his myths and legends. In the finale, Heisenberg’s name became the mythical legend of the city of Albuquerque. Walt becomes calmer, and people, including Elliott and Gretchen Schwartz, get scared.
So, he can operate from the shadows because his name precedes him. After his death, Walt gets everything he wants; his family will take his money regardless of whether they want to, Jack and his crew will die at Walt’s hands, and Lydia will slowly die. On a whim, he does it and decides to save Jesse. His strength became complete, peaceful, yet happy as Walt died, regardless of any real value that had stripped him of life.
He neither felt nor repented of the burdens of conscience that came with him. Walt only made up for it from an audience point of view. However, the only thing that makes us appreciate his downfall is that, at first glance, he does not commit crimes in a mysterious, glorifying, or glamorous way. Ultimately, Breaking Bad achieved what Gilligan wanted: showing a transformation.
Bibliography
- Dostoyevsky, F. (2017). Crime and punishment. Oxford University Press.
- Kjeldgaard-Christiansen, J. (2017). The bad breaks of Walter White: An evolutionary approach to the fictional antihero. Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture, 1(1), 103-120.
- Lee, D. R. (2016). What’s the Matter with Walter? The Privatization of Everything in Breaking Bad. Harvard University.
- Stevenson, R. L. (2006). Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and other tales. OUP Oxford.
