«I am the one who knocks»: the motif of the double in "Breaking Bad"

Authors

  • Fernando Sánchez López The Ohio State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_tropelias/tropelias.2021354536

Keywords:

Motif, Double, Duality, Split personality, Breaking Bad

Abstract

Among the unfathomable multiplicity of variables regarding the motif of the double, the most profoundly analyzed variation is intended to be the one related to an interior double and its identitary problem, a splitting of personality close to psychoanalytic notions about repressed traits of the human mind. In the present essay, after introducing some of its most paradigmatic instances, both in literature and cinema, the case study will be the television series Breaking Bad. Examining its protagonist, Walter White, and his alter ego Heisenberg, allows drawing some conclusions, both individually and contextually. The motif, as shown in Breaking Bad, seems to separate itself from the previous examples of the double, and becomes something admirable, attractive, close to our reality in comparison with the gothic, paranormal and uncanny aura of its precedents.

 

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Published

2021-01-30

How to Cite

Sánchez López, F. (2021). «I am the one who knocks»: the motif of the double in "Breaking Bad". Tropelías: Review of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature, (35), 311–326. https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_tropelias/tropelias.2021354536

Issue

Section

Papers
Received 2020-06-22
Accepted 2020-11-08
Published 2021-01-30