The character Walter White from the TV show Breaking Bad is a great example of how money created a monster. As many of you probably know, Walter White is very overqualified high school chemistry teacher with a wife, son, and a newly born daughter. He is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer around the same time his daughter is born, and is worried that he won't be able to leave enough money for his family once he passes away. One day he goes along on a meth bust with his DEA brother in law, and realizes how much money a meth dealer could make. After this encounter, he decides that he wants to start making meth as a way to support his family once he dies. Once he makes this decision, his intentions throughout the rest of the show revolve solely around not getting caught, not getting killed, and making the most money he possibly can.
One of the decisions Walter made early on in the show directly related to his partner in crime, Jesse Pinkman. Jesse was the drug dealer while Walter was the drug producer, so Walter needed him alive if he planned on making any money. At one point in the show Jesse finds a girlfriend that leads him down the road of doing heroine. Walter is not pleased with this decision, and needs to figure out how to make him stop. In a turn of events leading to Walter busting into Jesse's apartment with him and his girlfriend high on heroine, he finds Jesse's girlfriend overdosing. Instead of trying to help her, he just leaves her to die because he knew that was an easy way to get her out of the picture and to get Jesse back to helping him sell meth.
Later on in the show the DEA is getting close to finding out who Walter really is, and Walter knows he's in trouble. Walter realizes that there are people in prison that have information on him, so to avoid them talking to the DEA, Walter orchestrates the murders of those 10 people to occur all within the same minute from several different prisons. Walter shows no remorse for his actions, and needed this to occur if he wanted keep his money and not get caught.
Quite possibly the darkest thing Walter ever did in the show however was when he decides to give Jesse to a white supremacy gang to be killed. After Jesse found out about several of the horrible things Walter has done to him over the years, he goes on a rampage and almost kills Walter. The DEA intervenes though and convinces him to give them details on Walter instead. After a turn of events, Walter hires this white supremacy gang to steal the evidence on Walter and kill Jesse. All of this was done to spite Jesse for giving up details on Walter, and quite obviously, still allow Walter to keep his money just a little while longer.
These are just three of the gruesome things Walter did to stay out of prison and to continue making as much money as he could. This is why he is a prime example of how money can turn somebody into a monster.
To start off, I have never seen Breaking Bad, but I have a vague idea of the show. This may be surprising, but I actually disagree with your claim that Walter White is a monster. You give great examples for your argument and explain said evidence, however, I feel that there is a crucial piece in your first paragraph that causes me to not view Walter White as a monster: he is doing it for his family. The other capitalist monsters that we talked about and defined in class all have only one objective: make more money because they want more money. Walter White, although he does do monstrous thins, as you described, is in this business for more than just the money, he's in it for the well being of his family, and that is something that no capitalist monster that does not care for other human life would think about. Still, great post!
ReplyDelete~Ryan Lantz
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteWell, it is true, in part, that Walter gets into the business to provide for his family. However, the series makes this initial excuse less and less tenable as Walter gets more and more entrenched. And besides, haven't people done monstrous things in the name of their "family." The mob comes to mind...
-Matt