ASAChower

 Since the last AP in the stories term, I went to the National Museum of Mexican Art, saw 2 movies, and learned about how to connect objects to stages of a hero’s journey. For the very last AP in this term, I had to compare the Hero’s journey of a fictional and a nonfictional hero, so I chose Hank Schrader (from Breaking Bad) Dwight Eisenhower. We got to choose how we compared them, so i opted for a comparative essay which follows:

“A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.”

— John F. Kennedy, 1963

Often, heroes are people we look up too, especially when times are dark and hopeless. I am comparing the journey of a fictional and nonfictional hero, Hank Schrader from Breaking Bad and Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States. To start, Hank’s call to adventure is after he examines an abandoned meth cook site and lab examinations confirm that the meth cooked there was the purest batch they’ve seen, and unbeknownst to Hank, it was cooked by his Brother in law, Walter White. Eisenhower’s call to adventure is when he joined the US military and served in the infantry and then logistics between bases in Georgia and Texas.

Hank starts out as a two-dimensional DEA agent who emasculates Walter White every chance he gets. He also gives off a strange racist vibe that dies out as the series progresses, hinting at offscreen character development. As for Eisenhower, he spent his early military career in World War One with an engineer unit in Maryland. Eisenhower wasn't happy about not being deployed; as his orders to fight in France were imminently cancelled, after he was reassigned to a tank unit in Pennsylvania. Later he received orders to deploy in France, a week before the armistice was signed, and he never saw combat. These separations are similar in that they both are really doing anything important, yet. A symbolic object from this stage in Hank’s journey would be the grillz of Tuco Salamanca, a drug lord he kills in self defence. He would get tuco’s grillz cast in resin as a paperweight, but due to PTSD from the incident he throws it in the Rio Grande. A symbol for this stage in Eisenhower’s journey would be a Distinguished Service Medal, due to the fact that Eisenhower managed to receive one while not in a combat role. 

The initiation of Hank’s journey begins when Walter White starts making meth in industrial quantities, making him harder to trace. After killing Tuco, Hank is promoted and sent to El Paso, finding that he doesn’t fit in as well as the other employees, partly because he doesn't speak Spanish. After narrowly surviving an IED explosion, hank decides to head back to Albuquerque to continue to pursue the cook of the pure meth. After he comes back home, the cartel that Tuco was associated with sends two assassins to take their revenge on hank. They fail, but hank is temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. During this attack, one of the assassins has hank on the ground and injured, and he could’ve killed him right then. Instead, the assassin decides to use an axe on Hank, but as he’s getting his axe hank is able to load one extra bullet left on the ground into his firearm, allowing him to survive the attack. As for Eisenhower, this stage of his journey would be his service during World War 2. Within a year of the US entering the war, Eisenhower was promoted to Commander of the European Theater of Operations, and soon after put in charge of the successful allied plan to rid North Africa of Axis rule, Operation Torch. After successfully dissolving axis rule in Africa, Eisenhower oversaw the successful invasion of Sicily and was soon after put in charge of liberating Western Europe and eventually the invasion of germany, where he gained popularity among the US population that would come in handy later. A symbolic object for this stage in Eisenhower’s journey would be a landing craft, due to all of the successful naval invasions he oversaw. A similarity in these journeys is that this time, they both involve very slim odds that could change the entire course of the story. Had Hank died, Walter probably would have gotten away with selling the meth, and if the Normandy landings failed, the soviets would probably have a much larger sphere of influence when the nazis collapsed.

The return of Hank’s journey is certainly the most eventful. Beginning with Hank semi-correctly assessing that local restaurant owner Gus Fring is responsible, Hank has to depend on Walter to help him investigate while he’s recovering from the attack. Walter eventually has Gus killed, and then he destroys the meth lab Gus had made him work at. The destruction leads to evidence that Gus was responsible, making hank more respected at the DEA, as before this most people doubted his theories. Some months later, Hank recognizes the handwriting in a book in Walter’s house as that of a meth cook who had been murdered earlier, and it’s at this point that he realizes that Walter had been cooking the pure meth all along. This wasn't enough evidence to incriminate Walter, so Hank along with his partner Steven Gomez and Walter’s former partner Jesse Pinkman team up and trick Walter into revealing the location of his money. Before realizing it was Hank who tricked him and not just Jesse, Walter requests aid from mercenaries to have Jesse killed. Against walters wishes, this leads to Hank being murdered in the process. 

This same stage of Eisenhower’s journey consists of his 8 year presidential term, where he campaigned on anti corruption and anti communism. He won both elections in a landslide due to most people being tired of the 20 year democrat hold on the presidency. Eisenhower made sure to end the Korean War, due to the fact that the front had stabilized. Without a doubt, the most important thing of his presidency was the Interstate Highway. The interstate connected all the military bases in the country, served as a good evacuation route, and could also make for an emergency landing ground for planes. Eisenhower would also correctly predict that US military operations in Vietnam would “absorb our troops by divisions”.  An object to represent this stage in Hank’s journey would be his partner’s shotgun, as shortly before he was murdered, he made an effort to grab it to defend himself; a sort of symbol of defiance. Something for this stage of Eisenhower’s journey would be an M1 Garand rifle, due to the fact that while it was outdated by the time Eisenhower left office, it was supplied to many of the countries the US sponsored during his presidency, like the Republic of China and Korea. A similarity in the return could be the fact that in a way, the events of breaking bad can be pinned on Eisenhower selecting Nixon to be his VP, giving him a better chance of becoming president later on; Nixon would escalate the drug war heavily while president.

In conclusion, while their separations and initiations are somewhat similar, the return as a more cause-effect relationship and it’s where the difference is most pronounced out of any of the three stages of the journey. I think the most similar parts of the journies happen in different stages, though. I feel that the part in hanks journey where he’s about to arrest Walter is closest to Operation Overlord in Eisenhower’s journey, because they’re both very pivotal.

Picture of hank:

Picture of Eisenhower:

The best part about this AP was being able to research while watching breaking bad, also I don’t get many chances to research history, either. If I had to change something about this AP, I would probably pick a breaking bad character with more of a lead role.

Works cited:

“Dwight D. Eisenhower.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/biography/Dwight-D-Eisenhower. 

“Eisenhower Presidential Library - Home.” Home | Eisenhower Presidential Library, www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/. 

Gilligan, Vince. “Watch Breaking Bad.” Netflix, 1 Sept. 2011, www.netflix.com/title/70143836. 

“Hank & Walt's Game of Cat & Mouse: Compilation: Breaking Bad.” YouTube, 25 Nov. 2019, youtu.be/c9BW9dCVYzA. 

“Hank Schrader.” Breaking Bad Wiki, breakingbad.fandom.com/wiki/Hank_Schrader. 

“Knowing the Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower  .” America's Presidents: National Portrait Gallery, americaspresidents.si.edu/research/object-groups/knowing-the-presidents-dwight-d-eisenhower%C2%A0%C2%A0.