The Other Side of the Gun: A Glance at the Killers - 12 AP Midterm

 

The Other Side of the Gun: A Glance at the Killers

Arjun Manyem

Troy High School

12 English AP

Mrs. Liamini

January 17, 2025

The Other Side of the Gun: A Glance at the Killers

When you think of the worst things someone could do, what comes to your mind? I, along with most people, would probably say murder. The taking of someone’s life is one of the most unforgivable actions anyone could take. Simply removing someone’s consciousness from this earth is unfathomable to me. With that being said though, there have been too many people killed in the past. Just recently, in 2022, there were almost 25,000 reported homicides in the US according to the CDC (2024). When people think about murder, or death in general, one thing that always comes up is how the victim’s family is handling it, and for good reason. Having someone so close to you stripped away so suddenly can be one of the most traumatic experiences in anyone’s life. But on the other hand, one aspect that most people don’t pay much attention to, is the person behind the gun. While there is no question that what the killer did was wrong, they are also humans, therefore they are also affected by this extremely traumatic action. More than just the short term effects, they may be affected in the long run, changing the entire course of their character. Even further, depending on what their mindset was before, and how far along their own journey they were, they might change differently. This poses the question: How can the positioning of one extreme action and the action itself change the course of a character’s journey?

When I was reading The Stranger, by Albert Camus, I admittedly was getting a little bored towards the middle because of the unfamiliar and nonchalant style of narration. That was until I got to the climax of part one. I was tense as I visualized Meursault killing the Arab, letting go of his finger and moving on with his life afterwards. While I was still engaged with the book before, while reading that specific part, I was on the edge of my seat. From that point on, I was tuned in to see how this changed his character’s path from the apathetic person that went with anything to the passionate absurdist we see at the end. After finishing the book, and seeing where Meursault ended up mentally, I realized that the “sudden” killing of the Arab wasn’t so sudden. It felt like a natural progression in Meursault’s journey because of the point in the story where it happened. If the murder occurred at the start of the book, it wouldn’t properly introduce us to the unique character of Meursault. Because the murder took place after we were properly introduced to Meursault and we were shown his nature, beliefs, and actions, it had a greater impact on us and influenced Meursault’s character arc more. As an already established character, after Meursault kills the Arab, we see how his beliefs evolve from him just going with whatever happens in his life to becoming more aware and passionate about his beliefs. Especially with Meursault’s reaction not being immediate grief and guilt, but rather indifference, the lasting effects of the trauma could lead to him continually thinking about his actions and trying to justify his beliefs. According to a study conducted by Irina Komarovskaya, published by the National Institute of Health, titled “The impact of killing and injuring others on mental health symptoms among police officers” showed that killing someone “was associated with PTSD symptoms and marginally with depression symptoms,” (2011, para 21) which in Meursault’s case, could have prompted him, after he killed the Arab, to be in his own head about the actions he took and think about his beliefs as a whole. While the study focused on police officers, they specified that the police officers were in their first three years on duty, which is closer to a normal person than an officer that has been serving for a long time, so we can use this data to get close enough to see how killing someone could affect a “normal” person, such as Meursault.

While I may have lost a little interest at the start of The Stranger, I was definitely not checked out at any point during this series. Breaking Bad was, and always will be, one of the best, if not the best, TV shows I have ever watched. From the first episode of the first season to the very end of the show, I was hooked. I watched Walter White use his cunning and genius to outsmart some of the scariest villains in all of television for five seasons and it never got old. Unlike The Stranger, Breaking Bad wasted no time getting into the action. There was no slow buildup with a climax. We were given less than one 40 minute episode to acclimate to the story and that itself was a perfect set-up for the rest of the show. At the start of the pilot episode, we see Walt as a seemingly mild-mannered teacher, not really the epitome of masculinity. Once he gets his cancer diagnosis though, he realizes that he is not happy at all with what he has been doing. After getting in a sticky situation with two low-level drug dealers, he ends up killing one of them and seriously injuring another. This is the climax of that particular episode, and possibly the catalyst for all the other more extreme actions Walt takes throughout the show. Throughout this episode, Walt is portrayed as just a normal person who sticks to the rules as much as possible and when he is forced to kill someone, it traumatizes him to the core. This is someone who has never even been close to any form of danger murdering someone. While this sudden traumatic event can be said to change his journey dramatically, it could also be looked at as the start of a new journey, defining his character throughout his life for the next two years. One common response to trauma can be a behavioral reaction, where the traumatized person “may try to gain control over their experiences by being aggressive,”(Department of Health and Human Services, 2016, Chapter Three, para 24) which can be a short term reaction, or in Walt’s case, may be a slow burn, changing him over the timespan of two years. 

While both Meursault and Walter White committed murder that changed the course of their journey, they each had different effects on their respective journeys. This is because of the time in which they happened in each of their stories. At this point in The Stranger, Meursault’s beliefs and character values are already established unlike Walt’s, whose beliefs we only get to see after the murder. These two different times of killing each serve a different purpose in their respective journeys, with Meursault’s being a catalyst to help him identify with his own beliefs and Walt’s being a starting point for his true character development. We also see that they have severely contrasting reactions to their kills. While Meursault is initially nonchalant, Walt freaks out about what he just did. While Meursault goes on to justify his beliefs, Walter White slowly but surely becomes more indifferent to killing and using whatever means necessary to get his way. According to Gerard Lawson, the author of an article titled “The hero's journey as a developmental metaphor in counseling”, connects the world of psychology/trauma with the writing world to create a counseling/therapy method which also helps illustrate the parallels between the two characters’ psychology and their point in their hero’s journey. He states that “when individuals experience a loss, that loss serves as the supernatural intervention initiating the journey,” which both characters can relate to. While they cause the physical loss, the mental loss is a part of themselves when they feel the guilt for killing another human, and this figurative loss kickstarts their true hero’s journey, so while Meursault and Walt may be at different points in their starting journeys, their loss pushes them to start a new journey, and dealing with the struggles and insight that comes from a whole new path. Exploring their psychology gives us new insight on how their characters may respond and change to this devastating action that they themselves have taken, showing us that taking an extreme action such as killing someone can still have traumatic effects on the killer which prompts them to fundamentally change, kickstarting a journey within themselves, the magnitude of which depends on their preexisting path.

References

Assault or homicide. (2024, July 23). National Center for Health Statistics. Retrieved January 16, 2025, from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

Camus, A. (1989). The Stranger (M. Ward, Trans.). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, U. S. (2016). Understanding the impact of trauma. In Treatment improvement protocol - trauma-informed care in behavioral health services - tip 57. LULU COM.

Gilligan, V. (Director). (2011, January 20). Pilot (Season 1, Episode 1) [TV series episode]. In V. Gilligan (Executive Producer), Breaking Bad. American Movie Classics.

Komarovskaya, I., Maguen, S., McCaslin, S. E., Metzler, T. J., Madan, A., Brown, A. D., Galatzer-Levy, I. R., Henn-Haase, C., & Marmar, C. R. (2011). The Impact of Killing and Injuring Others on Mental Health Symptoms among Police Officers. Journal of psychiatric research, 45(10), 1332–1336. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2011.05.004

Lawson, G. (2005, Fall). The hero's journey as a developmental metaphor in counseling. Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Education and Development, 44(2), 134+.

Munger, M. (2022). Walt Whitman's Healing Through Radical Empathy: A Trauma Studies Analysis. The Midwest Quarterly, 63(2), 198+.

Standing, J.-M. (2016, July). Transformative Trauma. USA Today, 145(2854), 26+.