John Gatti
Professor Donald Sells
Great Books 191
4 December 2014
Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad: A Modern Adaptation of Aeschylus’ Oresteia Throughout Vince Gilligan’s television series Breaking Bad, the show’s principal character, Walter White, experiences a tragic series of life events that parallels that of Agamemnon in Aeschylus’ Oresteia. Adapting this ancient Greek tragedy forces Gilligan to create a set of conditions that make this storyline more accessible for a modern audience. By choosing contemporarily relevant, yet abhorrent themes to draw these parallels, Gilligan makes this loose adaptation of The Oresteia engaging for a modern audience. By including vivid details outlining Walter White’s unyielding greed and unsavory home life
…show more content…
According to Solon’s theory of excess wealth, excess wealth leads to koros—an inability to achieve satisfaction. This, in turn, leads to hubris—a crime of humiliating others. When Agamemnon returns home to Argos from Troy, he arrives with numerous riches that he earned fighting the Trojan War. Affirming Solon’s theory, Agamemnon is no happy with monetary wealth alone, as he seeks intangible power in his personal life as well. His koros influences him to assert his dominance over his wife, Clytemnestra, by silencing her. (Agamemnon: 913-915) Because of Agamemnon’s inability to be satisfied by his existing wealth, he decides to walk on a tapestry that Clytemnestra lays out in front of him. (Agamemnon: 944-957) This act is a terrible mistake, as the tapestry represents great wealth, a symbol of Agamemnon’s high socioeconomic status. By walking on it, and thus ruining the tapestry, Agamemnon commits a great crime out of greed that shows his ignorance of socioeconomic disparities in an ancient Greek society where most people could not dream of possessing such a treasure. Agamemnon commits this transgression because the tapestry’s value seems miniscule in comparison to his accumulated wealth. Because of his ceaseless drive to assert his …show more content…
Lyons, Melissa Bernstein, Karen Moore,
Bryan Cranston, Anna Gunn, R J. Mitte, Aaron Paul, Dean Norris, Betsy Brandt, Raymond Cruz, Tess Harper, Steven M. Quezada, Krysten Ritter, Giancarlo Esposito, Lancie J. De, Michael Slovis, Dave Porter, and Lynne Willingham. Breaking Bad: The Complete Second Season. United States: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2010.
Gilligan, Vince, Thomas Schnauz, Peter Gould, George Mastras, Melissa Bernstein,
Stewart A. Lyons, Dave Porter, Bryan Cranston, Anna Gunn, R J. Mitte, Aaron Paul, Betsy Brandt, Dean Norris, Giancarlo Esposito, Jonathan Banks, Bob Odenkirk, and Steven M. Quezada. Breaking Bad: The Complete Third Season. Culver City, Calif: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2011.
Gilligan, Vince, Bryan Cranston, Diane Mercer, Moira Walley-Beckett, Stewart A.
Lyons, Anna Gunn, Aaron Paul, Dean Norris, Betsy Brandt, R J. Mitte, Bob Odenkirk, Giancarlo Esposito, Jonathan Banks, Michael Slovis, Nelson Cragg, Dave Porter, Kelley Dixon, and Skip MacDonald. Breaking Bad: The Complete Fourth Season. Culver City, Calif: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2012.
Gilligan, Vince, Stewart A. Lyons, Diane Mercer, Bryan Cranston, Anna Gunn,
The cover up of Miller's death was not alarming to me because that continues to happen in jail or prison daily. The administration just wants to bury the problem instead of taking responisibity for any part in the inmate deaths. There trying to uphold the jails repretutation, bad press is the last thing they need. Red's plan to cover-up Daya's pregnancy was shocking but she knew it could be done. There is supposed to be rules enforce between guards and inmates but it seems like everyone breaks them whenever it's convenient for them.
The twelfth episode of season three, better known as “Lemons”, covers the community’s reaction to Donald Trump becoming the president of the United States of America. It shines light on the turmoil that has escalated across the nation. Spanish
It was a summer day at Farrington Grove Elementary School when I heard the teacher exhorting the early history of my homestate in every word. My mind had begun to time travel. I could imagine the Indians roaming a dense woods hunting game. One day a foreign white man makes his way into the unconquered territory. It is an intense situation at this meeting between two very different peoples in the world that will forever determine the fate of our grand nation of the United States of America and the state of Indiana.
As Ashleigh Banfield questioned Bryan Cranston if he will be seen in any other spinoff, the star just said that "never say never." With this, the rumors are strong that he will be gracing "Better Call Saul" Season 3. AMC has yet to announce the return of Saul Goodman on the small
My favorite character is definitely Eli.I love that in the beginning years of the compound he shuts everyone out and blocks himself from the world or at least the new one.Then the sixth year when he finally starts to put the pieces together.While all this is going on he starts to soften up and enters the yellow door known as the supplements room.He ends up loving his little brothers and sister.
At the beginning of World War I, the American government was against the actions of both the Allied and the Central powers and did not want to join the war. However, America was trying to become the peacemaker, and so they claimed neutrality. Although, in 1917 United States of America did join the war based on many reasons, some good some bad. Even though America entered the war late, it was still greatly affected by it. World War One impacted nearly everybody in the society, especially women, minors, and workers.
A crime show with a top notch cast, worthwhile story line and incredible facts from the first episode to today. Sounds like a show I would want to watch, how about you? Since 2005, Criminal Minds has been a hit and stolen the hearts of many people. A team of well-trained FBI profilers must analyze and stop some of the most tangled and twisted minds with the help of David Rossi. Rossi, one of the founders of the BAU team, leads the team to help solve some of the most shocking of cases to bring peace to people around the country. His team is lead by Special Agent Hoctchner with the help of Derek Morgan, genius Dr. Spencer Reid, unit liaison Jennifer “JJ” Jareau, Emily Prentiss and computer magician Penelope Garcia. Throughout each episode we
Diversity Day was episode two in the first season and it explained that offices should have diversity and each person should learn to respect others ethnicities. Steve Carell plays Michael Scott who is the boss of everyone
A family man, high school chemistry teacher and a highly sought-after methamphetamine chemist. Walter White, the main character of television series Breaking Bad defines what it is like to go from a regular chemistry teacher to a wanted man by the Drug Enforcement Administration. So how does this seemingly normal guy get wrapped up into the drug trade? Without diving into all five seasons, the focus is going to be in season five, episode seven called “Say My Name.” Walter White, the main man in all the meth cooking operations, discovers he has lung cancer which turns his life completely upside down.
One of the actors that I really enjoyed was T.J. Pederson who played Eilert Loveborg. To me he was very convincing in his role. He makes the change of his character very dramatic. That's what really stood out to me was when he comes back to Hedda after the night of binging and tells Hedda that his life is over. The other actor that I enjoyed was Rebecca Chanelle Holoptier who played the lead role, Hedda. She made her character very real by portraying her
Grey’s Anatomy is a television medical drama that has been running for a little over a decade. This show is known to have one of the most diverse cast in the history of American television. Actors include white, black,
Prejudice is a negative attitude toward people who belong to a specific social group. Prejudice has been around our world for many years and there continues to be prejudice. In the book of Psychology there are many groups of individuals who comes from different places of the world and when looking at one another features maybe different, but they are much more similar than different. That is because they could be in the same age group or have same interest. It is much more likely for people to get along better with the person who is of different skin color than people with same skin color. Through history, much of prejudice talk revolves around race and ethnicity. Now in today’s modern society, there is prejudice against sexual orientation,
It may be mentioned here that a few days ago, Mike had teased these three names and claimed that they were all coming to season 3. The latest spoilers also say that Emily, Amanda Stanton, Haley Ferguson and Leah Block are the ones who are onboard and
The first play, Agamemnon, tells about the return of the King from the Trojan wars and how his wife has chosen to react to the reunion. Clytemnestra is the queen who was angered by the fact that Agamemnon was away for a decade and that the King sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia to one of the gods. In one part of the play, the Chorus of Elders chants "Zeus who hath paved a way for human thought, by ordaining this firm law 'He who learns, suffers'" (Aeschylus, trans. 1893, 1.176-179) which speaks to the law that was formed by the words. The people of Greece followed the law that a person who commits a crime, whether that be a recognized law or one that the punisher deemed appropriate, is subject to some form of punishment. In Agamemnon's case, Clytemnestra believed that his actions justified his death. She did not believe that it was murder because his actions justified her actions.
Benjamin is the hero; the incoherent individual that learns an unpleasant lesson due to one event that changed the course of all events prior, (Gordon’s death) Captain Stoltz was the villain; the sadistic, power hungry oppressor with manipulative ways that ended up determining his fate, Johan represented the loyal and resourceful character that led the viewer to believe there was a shed of hope throughout any struggle, and Stanley was the character I’ve seen way too often, the random bystander that provides the cathartic release by ultimately giving the villain what he deserved. Despite some predictable qualities, the characters were still interesting. I thought Donald Sutherland played the part of Benjamin superbly. His air of seriousness and integrity really keep me interested in his character. Sure, he was naïve before the death of Gordon, and it was “best to just let it go” at first, but he grew from being pessimistic and cynical, to an entirely optimistic, likeable person to me the end by going neck deep into the mystery of Gordon‘s disappearance. My favourite character of all though, was no doubt Mr. McKenzie. Though he only was vaguely present, he absolutely dominated the screen during the courtroom trial. I found his use of sarcastic remarks in the courtroom hilarious, yet so fittingly applicable to his realist character. He clearly is a trail blazer in the sense that he is a white man fighting for black rights, yet he does so anyways, just to