Even if you don’t watch it, you’ve heard some sort of buzz about the critically acclaimed television show Breaking Bad. The show consisted of five seasons, originally aired from 2008 to 2013 on the network AMC, and was created and produced by Vince Gilligan. It is widely regarded as one of the best TV shows of all time and has won many awards, most notably 10 Primetime Emmys. The plot of the show focuses on Walter White, a middle-aged high school chemistry teacher who is struggling to make ends meet to provide for his pregnant wife and teenage son with cerebral palsy. In the very first episode, he is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and is only given a short amount of time left to live. Hearing about the grandiose amounts of money one can make in the methamphetamine business from his DEA agent brother-in-law Hank and already being a chemistry genius, Walt decides to start manufacturing his own meth to secure his family’s financial future. He teams up with a former student and drug dealer, Jesse Pinkman, and together, they make and sell the purest meth in New Mexico. Even after the numerous encounters that showed how dangerous and life threatening the drug trade is for not only him but his family as well, Walt continues to take pride in his work and wants to elevate his status to a drug kingpin. This is what causes the downfall of Walter White – and this downfall can be compared to that of famous Greek tragic characters such as Oedipus in Oedipus Rex and Creon in Antigone. Breaking Bad is a modern day Greek tragedy and Walter White is the tragic hero. Aristotle presented an outline of the qualities a tragic hero must possess, and most of them can be applied to Walter White. His tragic flaw is what led to his downfall, and afte...
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...are present in modern culture today. Breaking Bad is probably the closest modern example that we will get to Greek theatre in this day and age, and I think Vince Gilligan is a masterful exploiter of that. Walter White will go down in history alongside Oedipus, Hamlet, and Jay Gatsby as a tragic hero swallowed by pride. But whether you hated him or you loved him, you will remember his name.
Works Cited
Gilligan, Vince. "Felina." Breaking Bad. AMC. 29 Sept. 2013. Television.
Kearney, Dutton. "The Tragedy of Breaking Bad." The Imaginative Conservative. The Imaginative Conservative, 13 Aug. 2013. Web. 08 May 2014.
Thompson, Don. "The Characteristics of an "Archetypal" Tragic Hero." Pepperdine University, n.d. Web. 7 May 2014.
VanDerWerff, Todd. "How Breaking Bad Broke Free of the Clockwork-universe Problem." The A.V. Club. Onion Inc., 7 Aug. 2013. Web. 08 May 2014.
A tragic hero is an individual who possesses a fatal flaw in their character that will bring about their own destruction or suffering. Aristotle believed that “A man doesn't become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall. (Aristotle #1)” This Ancient Greek philosopher also believed that each tragic hero has four characteristics. The first of these characteristics is that a tragic hero is born with either wisdom or high integrity, and in some cases both. Aristotle’s second characteristic is that they contain a fatal flaw in their character that may cause them to behave irrationally. The penultimate characteristic is that each hero will suffer a turnabout of fortune brought about by their own flaw in character. Finally, the last characteristic is that the tragic hero will find out that their own turnabout of fortune was brought about by their own actions. McCandless in into the wild is the ideal tragic hero mentioned by Aristotle. McCandless had everything in the world but he gave it up to live in the wilderness and through his own actions he paid the ultimate price. McCandless is seen by the world as a young man who left the corrupted society to embrace a journey only a few would dare. “That's what was great about him. He tried. Not many do. (Krakauer 96)” This journey ended up being the best time of his life and the fact that he attempted this wildlife adventure makes him look more like a daring hero than an idiotic teen.
In addition, the final aspect of a tragic hero is a sudden change in course of action, caused by their major flaw, which brings about their p...
Everyone can relate to an archetype character in a movie, book, or television show. An archetype in literature is a typical character with an action or a situation that seems to represent such universal patterns of human nature. Common archetypes of characters are: a hero, caregiver, rebel, damsel in distressed, lover, villain, or tragic hero. In the play, The Crucible, there are several kinds of characters with archetypes. Tragic hero normally are in tragic plays which also can be called tragedy. “Tragedy is a drama in which a character that is usually a good and noble person of high rank which is brought to a disastrous end in his or her confrontation with a superior force but also comes to understand the meaning of his or her deeds and to
We have read an adventurous story called The Odyssey. It was about a hero named Ulysses who goes through many conflicts to get home. He has faced monsters to beautiful women, but he still got home. Ulysses fits the model of an archetype. There are three ways he fits into the model.
Heroes in literature and history, more often than not, meet tragic ends, unless they were created by Walt Disney. These particular people are often seen as someone who is apart from the masses in morals and attempt to accomplish a higher calling for the common good. The problem with this type of hero is that they are destined for suffering.Two such characters exist in classic literature, Winston Smith of George Orwell’s 1984 and Hamlet of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.” Hamlet is the true classic tragic hero, though, because he is of noble birth, possesses high moral standards, completes the task he is given to better the world, and causes tragedy in both his life and the lives of others.
In reality, if there is a law, it needs to be enforced. However, a question arises about how the law should be enforced to avoid injustice. The three storylines show how the law is forced, for instance in case of the state of Florida (“Gideon’s Trumpet”), sometimes, however, in the form of abusing power as presented by Angelo (“Measure for Measure”) and Col. Nathan R. Jessep (“A Few Good Men”). Regardless of all the cases of strict enforcement of the law, unfair rules, and abusive behaviors, the role models of the stories were persistent enough to achieve justice and make changes for all.
Lewis, Ann F. "The West Wing." Television Quarterly 32.1 (2001): 36-38. Art Source. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
In many works of Literature, a character comes forth as a hero, only to die because of a character trait known as a tragic flaw; Hamlet from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Okonkwo from Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, and Winston Smith from Orwell’s 1984 all exhibit that single trait, which leads, in one way or another, to their deaths. These three tragic heroes are both similar and different in many ways: the way they die, their tragic flaws, and what they learn. All three characters strongly exhibit the traits needed to be classified as a tragic hero.
Cyrano was an excellent example of a tragic hero; for he's a great hero but with tragic flaws, ultimately resulting in his defeat. His...
On the other hand, another type of tragic hero exists, the modern tragic hero. This type of hero is a product of a clash between the individual and the social environment. Arthur Miller, the famous playwright, said, “each person has a chosen image of self and position, tragedy results when the character’s environment denies the fulfillment of this self concept.” (LATWP, 640). This is a contrast from Aristotle’s classic tragic hero because the hero is no longer born into nobility but gains stature in the action of pitting self against the cosmos, and the tragedy becomes, “the disaster inherent in being torn away from our chosen image of what and who we are in this world.”
Though many story arcs are used to work with each other, the one that sticks out is the telling of a tragic hero. Walter White is a modern day Hamlet, Oedipus, and Macbeth. And I think that is one of the reasons that I am attracted to this type of story. In the comparison to those characters, I can see the qualities that made Walter White who he is. From the traits of hubris and hamartia all the way down to catharsis, everything is there working together. As a filmmaker, it’s interesting to put it all into context and see that Breaking Bad is not something brand spanking new. It made me realized what made a story bad and not relatable. It’s no reason Breaking Bad is used a ton in storytelling classes and as a Bible for writers. It also leaves a lot of questions for the audience and how they choose to relate to Walter White. For me, I felt pity and sadness and would consider him a tragic hero. However, other people would disagree and say that his sidekick is the hero and Walter is a complete psycho. And no one would be wrong. That’s important in literature and movies. There should be no one right answer and linear path otherwise what are we going to talk
Reeves, Charles H., “The Aristotelian Concept of the Tragic Hero,” The American Journal of Philology , Vol. 73, No. 2 (1952), The Johns Hopkins University Press, http://www.jstor.org/stable/291812.
A dismal 1.4 million people tuned in to watch the pilot episode of Breaking Bad in January of 2008, but an astonishing 10.28 million viewers tuned in to watch the Breaking Bad finale (Kissell). This exponential increase in viewership can be attributed, partially, to the development of the characters in the show, especially Walter White. As fans of the show tune in each week to watch, they begin to see that Walter is not at all like the meek schoolteacher they initially thought he was. Truly, the story of Walter White is the story of change. Both loved and hated, Walter White went from pitiful sufferer, to ultimate villain. Walter began cooking meth as a means for extra income. After he was diagnosed with cancer, he realized that he needed another source of income to pay for his treatment and support his family. In two short years, Walter becomes the best meth cook in the nation, and arguably the world. To become so successful, Walter abandoned his morals by murdering, stealing, and lying his way to the top in what went from part-time job to lifetime commitment. While his reasons for entering the drug trade were heroic, Walter became blinded by greed and selfishness, and is undoubtedly a villain because of his egotistic pride, his selfishness, his greed, his ruthless ability to manipulate those around him, and his immoral choices. Ultimately, these qualities led him to his demise.
Thorslev, Peter L., Jr. The Byronic Hero: Types and Prototypes. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1962. Print.
For a time, the main characters in a story, poem, or narrative were easily classified as either being a hero or a villain. A hero would be easy to identify by the traits he'd possess, such as bravery, honesty, selflessness, trustworthiness, courage, leadership, and more. The villain would be easy to identify as well, possessing traits such as maliciousness, deceitfulness, immorality, dark, wishing harm upon others, and more. But what if the character lacked the natural heroic qualities but wasn't a villain either? What if the person displayed personality flaws that would traditionally be associated with a villain, but has heroic intentions? These questions were finally answered with the emergence of the anti-hero in literature.