This part is the second part of my analysis of Walter White’s character. You can find the first part on this blog.
Link to download the appendices (French subtitles) : https://uncloud.univ-nantes.fr/index.php/s/pXZXkJcFcLxzNKs
Disclaimer : This analysis contains SPOILERS of a large part of the plot of the series, and of the evolution of its main character.
A knowledge of analytical theory may be necessary at certain times, although I have tried to make its understanding as clear as possible.
c. Process of Narcissistic Perversion:
Season 5, Episode 14: When one of Jack’s henchmen is about to bring Jesse in to “question” him about information he may have shared with the drug squad, Walter will take the opportunity to tell Jesse that he was there when Jane died: “I watched Jane die. I was there, and I watched her die. I watched her overdose, and I watched her choke to death. I could have rescued her… but I didn’t do anything” (Appendix 20). This exchange of rare violence makes Jesse understand what Walter has become, this point of no return that we as spectators suspected. This episode therefore relates to the moment when Walter lets Jane die before his eyes, when he can help her. In fact, this moment is, we understand, crucial in the evolution of our hero’s dynamics. To imagine the destructive emotional power of the speech, we must understand that Jesse feels, from the beginning, responsible for Jane’s death (Appendix 21). She was in a period of total abstinence, before reconstructing drugs with him and overdosing. We must also understand that Jesse is the most empathetic character in the series, the one who refuses to let children be killed, the only one who dares to stand up to Gus Fring. His psychological fragility will be at the origin of the confrontation between Walter White (manipulating Jesse to establish his narcissism in a dual relationship, and using him repeatedly to commit acts he doesn’t want to commit) and Gus Fring (manipulating Jesse to kill and replace Walter in the production of methamphetamine, the latter becoming too dangerous in Gus’ eyes). Throughout the entire series, Jesse will keep calling Walter “Mr. White”, revealing identification with a destitute father figure (Jesse was thrown out of the family home because he is a drug user). These multiple games of manipulation, leading us to this situation, finally make us see what we had become as spectators: Jesse is an object of evacuation (Racamier, 1992) carrying what Walter is unable to represent of his own functioning. As Walter was about to lose control of the situation, to be arrested by his brother-in-law Hank because of Jesse’s revelations and ingenuity, Walter marks the relationship: he is the one who dictates the laws. More than ever, Jesse becomes Walter’s bearer of suffering, this “object-not-object” (Racamier, 1992), allowing him to overvalue his failing narcissism, at the risk of annihilating it. In fact, the subject/object dialectic is impossible: “The other is a simple ingredient at the service of impulsive satisfaction” (Marty, 2006, p. 265). By wanting to attack Walter’s self-appointed authority figure, Walter will take the final step and go to Jesse’s “conquest of psychic territory” (Eiguer, 2012). Jesse has humiliated Walter and will pay the price: “Kill them, they don’t care, humiliate them, they’re dying!” said Racamier (1992). Racamier considers that these perversions have their origin in “denials and evictions of any internal conflict. They make people do about the psychic savings, the bill for which is to be paid by others”. Following this postulate, we suppose that the conflict and the eviction of the action committed on Jane is the origin of it, provoking from now on the failure of the Superego (formerly surmoic) in its anti-narcissistic function, and in the control of sadistic tendencies presented previously.
Marty (2006, p. 268) considers that violence must be considered “first as an expression of distress, a survival reaction to an object that threatens the narcissistic integrity of the subject, before considering its destructive potential”. In fact, Walter here passes over “the limit that should keep him from invading (…) (Jesse’s) private space“, illustrating a psychic rape (Marty, 2006, p.264) of extreme violence and the “orgasm of the Ego” (Racamier, 1986) at work in Walter’s work. The discourse and the elements reveal a projective identification mechanism, in which Walter projects on Jesse the unrepresentable anguishes he bears, with a view to harming him. Thus, if Jesse had not given information to the DEA, Hank would not have died. For Walter, the latter is responsible for the misfortune he himself caused, the past being rewritten in favor of the immediate needs of his failing narcissism. In this framework, Racamier (1986, p.307) argues that “it is a question for the perversive to ensure his own immunity through the conflict and the pains of mourning, and to value himself narcissistically (in relation to deep and hidden flaws) by attacking the self of the other and enjoying his rout; this rout is then blamed on him, so that the perversive enjoyment is always redoubled”.
The psychic rape that we present, however, we see it well before, during episodes 12 and 13 of season 4. The first episode quoted puts in scene the confrontation between Jesse and Walter, where Jesse thinks that Walter wanted to poison the child (Brock) of his girlfriend (Andrea) with the drug that was supposed to kill Gus (the ricin made by Walter). In this frame, Jesse is going to point a weapon at Walter. The presentation of the dialogue allows us to grasp the entire mechanism of manipulation put in place by our character (Appendix 22). By agreeing to question his omnipotence, by arguing that Gus’ scenario is “genius”, Walter sows doubt in the mind of Jesse, who has understood everything. Jesse, by having stopped taking drugs, reveals to us an extraordinary intelligence (learned alongside Walter?). By asserting that Gus “is ten steps ahead of me, from the beginning”, by removing himself from the status he gives himself, by acknowledging having been manipulated, Walter totally reverses the situation. In this way, he manages to insidiously deconstruct and reconstruct another psychic representation in Jesse (Racamier, 1992), inducing that it all comes from Gus Fring. Episode 13 (season 4) makes us aware of all the perversity of Walter, and confronts us with our own emotional investment concerning our hero: To whom are we really attached? At the death of Gus Fring, we think that everything is over, paradoxically appeased by the death of this character, much more perverse than Walter. At last! The monster Gus was killed, he who was always one step ahead of everyone: Walter, Jesse, his henchmen. Then everything changes during this sequence shot, this zoom on a flowerpot where is written “Muguet” (appendix 23). Walter’s obsession to kill Gus, whom he envies and admires, is going to deliver us the great about-turn at the end of this series: the son (Brock) of Jesse’s new girlfriend (Andrea) was not poisoned by the poison (ricin) that Walter had made to kill Gus (which also clears him in the eyes of Jesse) but by lily of the valley (which will clear Jesse in the eyes of the narcotics). This flower contains irritating and cardio-toxic principles, here used to poison Brock. That, it is not Gus who orchestrated it, but Walter White. All this was played when Walter, at the edge of his swimming pool, waiting for one of Gus Fring’s henchmen to come and kill him, spins a pistol on himself, which on the third throw is directed towards this flowerpot ? (appendix 24). Yes, we too, like Jesse, were manipulated by Walter when he announces that Gus is “ten steps ahead” of him. While we still believed in his redemption, we face our own refusal to admit the truth: Walter only wants to satisfy himself. This is a far cry from the “I do it for my family” that he actually had. But then, have we, too, been manipulated by our screen? Racamier (1986) notes that “for them a successful lie counts as truth”. This same truth that has fooled us. All the brilliance of writing, Bryan Cranston’s acting, and directing is illustrated by this simple reflection. This false truth, he will destroy it when he finally confesses to his wife Skyler, during the last episode of the series: “I did it for me. I loved it. I was good at it. I was alive.” (Appendix 25). Walter, who constantly proclaimed “I do it for my family”, accepts who he is, accepts to lose everything to finally preserve his own, to face his truth. In accepting this purpose, Walter confirms that it was never a question of him making drugs to protect her, echoing episode 14 (season 5) where his son will contact the police and be responsible for her fall. Walter however will strike them: “Have you gone crazy? We are a family!” (appendix 26). As tragic as it is exhilarating, this reply puts Walter face to face with the consequences of his actions: “It’s over, you’ve lost everything, Dad”. An impression that was already revealed in the episode “The Fly” presented earlier.
III. Clinical Reverie : Which hypothesis?
In this part, we will let ourselves think of clinical hypotheses, concerning the psychic dynamics of our hero. The first hypothesis that we pose refers to a bad oedipal structuring in the introjection of norms and prohibitions. By transgressing them one by one throughout the series, and through a rapid evolution, it seems to mean “the failure of the Oedipal conflictualization, the failure to overcome incestuous and parricide positions, the failure to integrate them into stable neurotic identifications” (Marty, 2006). Hank will be the target of this rejection. By playing on this paternal figure, Walter seems to give rise to “the expression of unexplored primitive hatreds” (Rabeyron, 2018), translated by mechanisms of cleavage (e.g. Jesse is successively the good and the bad object) and idealisation (that of Gus Fring, and the paternal figure he gives himself up to be) characteristic of the schizo-paranoid position. Following Kleinian theory and our hypothesis, Walter’s internal world seems not to have introjected and allowed the identification of a good and stable object, crucial in the capacity of his ego to unify and integrate his different experiences, in order to foster his confidence and well-being. In fact, a part of his internal objects, damaged or dead, seems, with the help of the circumstances we know, to lead our hero to the progressive “disintegration” of his personality, signing his refusal of the depressive position through manic defences: these same defences signalling his impossibility of losing an object?
To sum up, our analysis presents itself as such: at first, Walter, up to the age of 50, seems to implement phases of retreat and regression, the fruit of a refusal to over-invest in the worrying adult world, he who is a Nobel Prize winner. How is it that this brilliant man has such a simple life? Then, faced with the narcissistic and identity-related suffering (Roussillon, 2013) that Walter will be confronted with when his cancer appears, and the work of emancipation that this engenders, he will become involved in a hyper-investment in the surrounding world, via megalomaniacal processes and antisocial tendencies; presented in this dossier; “to be understood as the expression of an enactment that the subject himself has previously experienced” (Rabeyron, 2018, p.260) seeking to update itself while awaiting symbolisation (Roussillon, 2014). Walter has the feeling of having been vandalised, of having been dispossessed of his property in the enrichment of the company he co-founded with Elliott and Gretchen Schwartz. In fact, in order to imagine himself in terms of non symbolised shares so that they can “fit into the current fabric of subjectivity” (Roussillon, 2013), would our hero go through action in order to “reappropriate something of himself” (Rabeyron, 2018) allowing him to finally feel alive and whole? Wouldn’t the evolution of our character be the staging of an adolescent crisis that goes wrong? All the elements noted in this dossier lead us to think that Walter’s psychic dynamic is a “Borderline state“, where his world is organised according to different marked cleavages (from the object: the strong and the weak, from the Ego: Walter White and Heisenberg). One sector of Walter’s ego seems to be adapted to the external reality (he works, has a family, feels guilt…), while another sector of his ego seems to be fixed to narcissistic needs (Grebot, 2002, p.19). This dynamic will lead Walter to murder, an extreme form of denial of otherness (Rabeyron, 2018, p.261). In order not to be the victim again, he then becomes the executioner, and relies on the people he meets; by entering the world of drugs; for narcissistic support. In fact, as Rabeyron (2018, p.260) points out, “the link to the object is suffering (…), the object coming to fill in early failures in the process of symbolisation“.
However, although the idea of a clinical frame associated with a “borderline state” organisation is appealing, it is important to shade it. By recontextualising our hero’s experience, we can indeed think of a reactionary decompensation linked to the appearance of his cancer and the identity reshuffle it engenders. The latter will be diminished when he accepts the castration and the reality surrounding him. Moreover, the existence of an obsessive arrangement is not to be neglected.
Our reflection, which is obviously a reverie given the lack of anamnestic elements, thus brings us back to the question that will never find an answer: What link(s) did our hero have with his parents?
IV. Conclusion
There would be so much to say about the main character of Breaking Bad. The staging of the latter reminds us how insignificant and fleeting our life on Earth is, while at the same time drawing a parallel with our need to deploy our sense of belonging, life and consciousness. Walter White is a reflection of our irreducible character: that of not being an individual separated from the society and culture in which we live. He reminds us that we are an animal species full of contradictions, paradoxes and conflictuality. Far from the Manichean heroes we usually see in American series and films, he is a mirror of human complexity, gradually becoming an anti-hero with whom we can still identify. Far from being a simple fictional character, he confronts us with the reality that surrounds us, and questions the inseparability of the subject regarding his social environment. “The individual is with the node of the interferences of the biological order of the impulse and the social order of the culture; it is the point of hologram which contains the whole (of the species, its society) while being irreducibly singular” says Edgar Morin to us (2001, p.47). This is illustrated by the conflictuality between the conservation of one’s previous identity (one’s family history), and the desire to free oneself from the castrating forces holding him back, from moroseness, as well as from the past for which he pretends to act. By “sacrificing the being to appear” (Jung, 1991) our hero has distanced himself from himself, from his own desires, in favor of his inscription in society.
In fact, he leads us to reflect on “the trinity of reason-affectivity–impulse” (Morin, 2001, p.45). How far does freedom in a society begin and end? What are the consequences of trying to extricate oneself from the authority of the social superego that allows us to be linked to others? Culture, norms and prohibitions are constantly confronting the subject, in a dialectic between superego, Ego and Id. Walter White splits himself into Heisenberg, gradually melts into it, not because he flees, but because he finds himself, elucidating in his own eyes his archaic consciousness: “Where the Id was, I must come” Freud told us in substance. From the neurotic compromise, making the link “between the mind and the real”, Walter immerses himself in his own fantasies allowing him to lighten the constraint of the real (Morin, 2001, p.134), exerted by his years of unsaid words, by the appearance of cancer and the stakes he raises for this subject that could have had a completely different life. The whole series is the highlighting of a reversal mechanism in its opposite, where impulsive retention becomes impulsive expansion. From a castrating superego he passes to an instance of the surmoic Id. Walter White thus sends us back to our own violence and ambivalence: How is it that a character with whom we identify can become an anti-hero in our eyes? Perhaps because he allows us the projection of what we reject about ourselves. Perhaps he is the illustration of our processes of repression for our adaptation in society. Is Walter only the highlighting of this violence phylogenetically inscribed in our nature? (Gómez, Verdù, González-Megías & Méndez, 2016). As spectators, our own aggressiveness would then be regulated by the violence of this character, and following his adventures would allow us to make impulses and humanity, reality and fantasy cooperate.
Words I have learned:
Anguish = Angoisse
Isolating mechanism = Mécanisme d’isolation
Retroactive annulment = Annulation rétroactive
Collapse = Effondrement
Flawed narcissism = Narcissisme en défaut
Projective identification mechanism = Mécanisme d’identification projective
Clivage = Cleavage
VII. Bibliography
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Denis, P. (2013) La « self-psychology » et le soi. La psychanalyse après Freud, Le Point, Références, p.46.
Eiguer, A. (2012) Le pervers narcissique et son complice. Paris : Dunod.
Gómez, J., Verdú, M., González-Megías, A., Méndez, M. (2016) The phylogenetic roots of human lethal violence. Nature 538, 233–237.
Grebot, E. (2002) Repères en psychopathologie (1ère ed., pp.89-102). Saint-Martin-d’Hères (Isère), France : PUG.
Klein, M. (2013) En observant le comportement des nourrissons. Dans Klein, M., Heimann, P., Isaacs, S., & Rivière, J. Développements de la psychanalyse, 223-253.
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Morin, E. (2001) La méthode, numéro 5 : L’identité humaine.
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Racamier, P-C. (1986) Entre agonie psychique, déni psychotique et perversion narcissique. Revue française de psychanalyse, vol. 50(5), 1299-1309.
Racamier, P-C. (1992) Pensée perverse et décervelage. Dans Gruppo, Secret de famille et pensée perverse (137-155), Paris.
Roussillon, R. (2013) Diversité et complexité des pratiques cliniques. Cahier de psychologie clinique, n°40, 29-45.
Roussillon, R. (2014) Le travail de symbolisation (2ème éd., 137-154). Paris, France : Elsevier Masson.