Walter White is the main character in the TV series "Breaking Bad" as a family man and high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with lung cancer. He doesn’t have much time to live so he takes it upon himself to make sure he leaves his wife, son, and new born daughter enough money so they don’t have to work after his passing. To do this, he teams up with a former high school student, Jessie Pinkman. Jessie is a meth addict and falls quickly into the idea of making millions with White. Together, White and Pinkman create one of the biggest meth empires in the Southwest, and eventually the whole country, under the name of "Heisenberg".
Throughout the five seasons, it becomes more apparent that Walter White has continued acts of
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He also watched as Jessie Pinkman's girlfriend, Jane, choked on her own vomit after overdosing on crystal meth, and did nothing to help her, just because he was mad at Jessie. After an innocent little boy was killed because he witnessed what they were doing, Pinkman quit because he couldn’t handle the stress of a young child being killed; but Walter did not care. He only cared about the money and himself. Both of these situations show the typical symptoms of this disorder, excessive need for admiration, disregard for others' feelings, an inability to handle any criticism, and a sense of entitlement.
Walter White fits the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder for many reasons. First, he repeatedly lies, uses aliases, and conns people for personal profit and pleasure. When he was first making meth, it was about the money and that was all, but later on in the show he lacked remorse. He didn’t care who he had to kill or conn to get what he needed to fulfill himself. Secondly, he expected to get constant attention, admiration and positive affirmation from others. In the final episode, White cons his last victims, the people who he had worked with and sold his share missing an opportunity to make millions. Towards the end of the season he wanted everyone to envy him and believe that everyone recognized him as superior and special for making millions illegally. Third, he was preoccupied with thoughts and fantasies throughout the show.
Walter Lee is stubborn, very ambitious, and filled with pride at the beginning of the story. He strives for success with the money “Mama,” also known as Lena got from the life insurance from her husband who recently passed away. Walter was so selfish all he wanted was to provide a better life for he and his family because he was not satisfied with their current standards of living. He wants more and wishes to become rich because he believes he never had enough growing up, but at the same time he wants to provide money and societal respect for his family. He put his trust with the money into a person who betrayed him and he ended up losing it all including his sisters schooling money. After this scene in the play Walter was at his lowest point,
Every black male's plight in America can be regarded as a provider for his family. However, society does not afford black males the benefit of feeling secure about providing for their families. It can be easy for anyone to criticize society and place the blame on America for not affording Walter the opportunities of his white counterparts. Walter does not have control over his own responsibilities. Therefore, if he was given all the resources needed to provide his family his poor judgement and lack of business sense would create further stress on the family. Ruth, Mama, and his sister Beanetha attack him from every angle about his doubtful ideals. Ironically, those ideals are what Walter needs to shape and justify his manhood. Without ideals and proper resources to obtain them, a man's existence can be regarded as insignificannot
I now understand the sociological components that are at work in his decision making. Also, I now see how these sociological components influence and interact with each other. For example, Walt’s social stratification, influences his choice towards deviant behavior. His social networks aided his deviant behavior, but he also faced stratifications for his actions. I learned that there are a lot of factors that influenced what he did, and I see that its deeper than just the television show, these elements are embedded in our society and the same factors can influence our
He is very ambitious and determined in his goals of becoming successful. At the same time he is very immature and naive. He is also very passionate and emotional and this sometimes blocks out his decision making. Walter is dead set on opening up the liquor store in the beginning of the novel and sees it as a way to better the life of his family. In addition he is not content with his current life. His immaturity is revealed when he argues with his adult sister and also when he has frequent emotional breakdowns. An example of his constant fighting with his sister is when he says “You a horrible-looking chick at this hour” (p.35). This displays Walter’s juvenile behavior, since at thirty-five Walter is still fighting with his sister. Walter is like a roller coaster going emotionally up and down. He reaches his highs when he was about to buy the liquor store. Contrary he hits rock bottom when he finds out Willy ran off with the money. Although never said Walter likely suffers from bipolar disorder given his constant mood swings. Nevertheless while the rest of the Younger’s see their lives going down the drain Walter still has optimism and hope. He views the money as a way out the Younger’s current living conditions. Walter was so determined to achieve his dream that he became gullible and naïve and convinced himself that things have to go right, but when they did not he lost his mind. Walter is
This only further infuriates Walter. Not only does his mother make a complete power-grab by buying the house; she bought it in a cracker neighborhood! Walter storms out and is almost ready to kill someone over it. He feels he has lost his only shot at power. Walter comes back home screaming at his whole family, they don’t support him, especially his mother. He accuses her of not supporting his dream.
Walter redeems himself when he refuses to take the money from Mr. Lindner. Though he was completely willing to swallow his pride for the sake of his family. This shows that Walter would do what it takes for the overall well-being of his family.
The newfound distributor turned out to be a sociopath, so in order to protect his identity Walter created the alias Heisenberg for himself. This was the point when Walter’s psychological health began decaying rapidly.
When Walter loses all his money, he’s willing to lose his dignity and be more aggressive to earn it back. We see this when the money is stolen Walters and how it affects Walters view of manhood when he says, “Mama, you know it’s all divided up. Life is. Sure enough. Between the takers and the “tooken.” (He laughs) I’ve figured it out finally. (He looks around at them) Yeah. Some of us always getting “tooken.” (He laughs) ….But I’ll say one thing for old Willy Harris ... he’s taught me something. He’s taught me to keep my eye on what counts in this world” (141). Walter is willing to go against his morals to get what he wants in life, He takes now and apologizes later, whereas the tooken think through ramifications of their actions and don’t act. After the money is stolen, he is willing to take and win, whereas he had
Because of this Walter has lost his self esteem and will to do anything to make his life better. This is important because it shows that Walter does not have a firm grasp on his own identity.
Breaking Bad is a TV show about a science instructor, Walter White, turning to cooking methamphetamine when he finds out that he has terminal cancer, so as to leave some legacy for his family. The show accompanies Walter as he changes from a compliant and empathetic father to a cold, merciless drug kingpin through the wrong decisions he makes in life. Vince Gilligan made the show with a dream of having the hero turn into the adversary as the show advances and to investigate the subject "actions have consequences." In giving Bryan Cranston a part as Walter White, Gilligan picked a performing artist whose livelihood bend dovetails uncannily with his character. As Walt changes from such a family man himself into a force eager executioner,
Toward the end of the play his spirit is broken, and he behaves almost like a madman, plotting to give in to Lindner and accept his offer; this action greatly worries his mother. The whole time, Walter wasn’t simply looking for a chance to follow through with his plans. He was seeking support from the system that he found himself subject to. This idea comes up in Gertrude Samuels’ Even More Crucial Than in the South. “…the real drive that is now rising ominously is a demand for personal dignity” (Samuels 1546). His personal dignity is at stake repeatedly throughout the story when he finds himself battling against a troubled family and a corrupt system.
Walter has changed his whole family. He has started so much conflict with all his family. His family at this rate will be better off without him. “You ain’t looked at it yet and you don’t aim to speak on that again? You ain’t looked at it and you have decided-well, you tell that to my boy tonight when you put him to sleep on the living room couch.” This just shows how much he wants to have HER money for himself because he is selfish and a shallow person. He is the reason why the family is tearing apart. Also, Walters actions show how edgy and inpatient he is. (Violently flinging the coat after her) He starts to get very violent, he flings things, slams doors, yells at mama, and starts to get verbally abusive towards her. He doesn’t know how to let things go and how to think in another person’s perspective. He only wants to do what he wants, he doesn’t care what the other family members want he just knows what he wants to get and forces the decision upon them all.
When Walter loses the money, his views change. He convinces himself that a man doesn’t need morals, and that the only thing that matters is how
Suddenly, things changed, and Walter and his family came into quite a bit of money. Walter’s mama got a check for ten thousand dollars from her husbands life insurance after he passed away, which was a lot of money in that period of time. A nice house or a liquor store could easily be bought with half of the money from the check. Since the check was actually written out to mama, the money was all technically hers, so all that she wanted to do with it was buy her new house for her family, but stubborn Walter, he wanted his liquor store, and would stop at nothing to get it. When he finally realized that his mama was never going to give him the money to get the liquor store, he took it upon himself to get it himself. He eventually stole a portion of his mama’s money to get the store, but he was taken for a fool when the other person that he was making a deal with, stole all of his money. Now he had nothing, and mama had only some of her money.
He is envious of the people in the establishment who can afford a higher standard of life, while he is stuck in a two room kitchen apartment, where they must share one bathroom with rest of the floormates. Walter hate seeing man around his age or even younger than him having such a lavish lifestyle because he believes that he would gotten the same type of opportunity if it was not for the color of his skin. Seeing his conversations with his mom, the readers can see that Walter feels that he is hopeless in the American