Happy Cooking with Meth (Midterm Part 2)

At the beginning of the Breaking Bad story, Walter White has a lot in common with J.Alfred Prufrock. Prufrock is filled with regret about his life because he has been indecisive, inarticulate, anxious, and overly concerned about how his actions will be judged by others to the point of being almost paralyzed.Prufrock’s been living a very inauthentic life, one where he’s failed to define himself as a free individual.

Walt too has a lot of regrets about his life, and appears to be a victim of circumstance: he’s an underpaid, over-educated chemistry teacher, whose promising career was cut short by greedy, fair-weather friends; he works part time at a car wash abled teenage son, and a new baby on the way; and he’s been told he’ll die soon from cancer.
Existentialists like Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre would say that Walt, like Prufrock, is living deeply in something called bad Faith, which is a bad thing whereby someone adopts false values and doesn’t live a rational and truly free life. Walt life lack authenticity. He fails to take hold of his freedom and responsibility because he sees himself as defined completely by others. However, there’s one major difference between Walter and Prufrock: Walt takes his cancer diagnosis as a wake-up call to become a fee individual and define what remains of his life, whereas with Prufrock we're left at the end of the poem with the impression that he’s fated to live and die in the same inauthentic frame of mind.
When Walt becomes Heisenberg, he accepts all the absurdity in and around his life, the biggest of which is his impending death:he accepts his cancer diagnosis and the reality of how treatment cannot help him long-term, and he knows that everything he does leading up to his last breath will be extinguished once he dies. Walt originally becomes a meth cook to support his family after his death, but it quickly became more than that. Walt finds great strength, pride, and satisfaction in cooking meth. Cooking meth was not the thankless job that teaching High School Chemistry was. Walt’s meth cooking is a rebellion in every sense of the word, and we must imagine him happy as he struggles onward, creating more meaning in the end of his life.
When Walt became Heisenberg and put on that black pork pie hat, he began a revolution in his life. Walt starts to live his own life, create his own essence, and become an authentic person. He becomes an absurd hero when he starts cooking meth and takes on the name Heisenberg: knowing he has lung cancer and knowing his days are numbered, Walt recreates himself like a phoenix from the ashes and pushes on with his rebellion against death, social norms, and his old life. Walt has a silent joy because within his revolt he owns his fate and he owns his essence. We must imagine Walt happy with a black pork pie hat and sunglasses on.