Analysis

Analysis: Breaking Bad

What would you do for your family? In the TV show Walter white does some pretty awful things for is family. If you do not know the show, it is about a man who is diagnosed with stage three-lung cancer. Being a high school chemistry teacher (though you later find out that he is a genus) he does not have very good insurance and doesn't make the salary for treatment. He realizes this, so he wants to make money for his family to live off of when he passes. So he goes into the manufacturing of crystal meth. There is more detail than this but that is for later. What this television show conveys is that family comes above all else, that greed will eventually take hold of the good motives, and that a good man can easily become a bad one.

During the first season, Walt is shown as a family man and a loving husband and father. So he does what he needs to help his family when he is diagnosed with cancer. This is the production of meth. Walt does this for his family so it is a noble cause. This gives the viewer an idea that family is the most important thing. Some people do not have a family per say but the message stays the same. Instead of laying around feeling sorry for himself, Walt decides to act to give his family what they need. Family is indeed what is most important to him. Family is what makes him do the things he does. A main plot point throughout the whole of the series is that family is what drove Walter and what eventually led to his downfall.

The idea of family being behind Walts downfall is also just as crucial to his success. When he and his wife got a divorce, he started going into a downward spiral. This included shooting and killing people and trying to kill his boss. In a way this is an analogy of the broken home. Walt goes into his low point when he and his family get torn apart. The message of that would be that a broken home leads to his downfall. Yet through all this he still provides money to his family.  So this could convey the message of loving your family even though they don't feel the same. So Walt shows is that family is his life and that he would do anything for it. This drove Walt to do things that he thought he was never capable of.

The next theme that this television show conveys is that greed will eventually take hold of even the purest motives. Like stated earlier, family was Walts main motive to begin with. But after he sees how much money he begins to rake in, he becomes very greedy. In most cases he nickels and dimes people. In one instance a junkie robbed on of his dealers. Walt wants his partner to find that junkie and get his money by any means necessary. His partner explains that this was just a menial fraction of the whole profit. This conveys the theme that greed overcame his desire to help his family. Later in the series he starts getting more and more money, but doesn’t help his family. He starts to separate from them and eventually they have nothing to do with him. Greed overcame him in the since that he could have stopped making meth when he hit a million dollars (which would have been plenty to live off of) he kept making meth and digging his hole deeper. He thought he could fill the void of his family not being there with the money. He realizes that it could never fill that hole that his family had left. He was to late to get them back. Greed made him become a ruthless drug lord that had no sympathy or empathy for anyone. He even turns on his own partner multiple times in the series. So in a way he turns on his own family and friends because of his greed and lust for more money is a strong message. So this idea that greed can blacken the even most pure of motives is a strong theme throughout this whole entire series.

In the whole scheme of the show the last two themes can be easily identified, his love for his family and his greed spoiling his good motives, but this next theme is also a very apparent one. Greed is one of the many things that Walt was guilty of. But in the beginning of the series he is shown as a loving father. How can a good man become an evil drug lord? This idea of good man turning into an evil person is a main theme throughout the show. Not only was he greedy, He also developed a bad lying habit. At the start it was to keep his wife from knowing the truth so she wouldn’t worry about where the money is coming from. When she eventually catches the partner, Walt lies about what he and his partner have been doing. So he just keeps building and building this tower of lies. Which eventually comes crumbling back to earth. So on top of the lies Walt also is only out for his own self-glory. In one instance, he doesn’t want to lander the money so it looks clean; instead he wants his family to know that he provided for them. So not only does he go from being a good man to a greedy man, he becomes a liar and he also becomes vain.

Breaking bad shows that a good man can turn into an evil one, it shows how greed can overtake someone, and it shows that family comes above all else. These are just some of the main themes running through the whole series, there are many more and many in just each individual episode. Breaking Bad shows the length in which one would go to provide for his family even through the hard times. This shows the drastic measures of which one would go to help his family. What would you do for yours?

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Giligan, Vince. Breaking Bad. Dir. Michelle MacLaren. FX. 20 Jan. 2008. Television.