Liberal deradicalization in the adaptation of novels to film: defining antiheroes, from Heathcliff to Walter White

Benjamin Kraft
Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:51:47 PDT

Using research from the history of the Victorian novel and recent media, I demonstrate the value in re-examining the critical importance of the antihero. Using a methodology of combining neo-Marxian analysis, adaptation studies, and a re-thinking of what constitutes novels and television serials, I explore how antiheroes are defined and why those definitions are often not inclusive to controversial, but seemingly definitional antihero examples. As informed by a critique of how antiheroes are defined, I use my research to discuss the underlying characteristics of the antihero across genres. From a perspective of critiquing liberalism adopted from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad, I structure textual evidence in support of antiheroes being identified according to three traits: sympathy, violence, and radical speech. The literary and real-world impact of each trait is argued according to evidence qualified by a neo-Marxian methodology, using an original synthesis of Louis Althusser's aleatory politics and the Marxist cultural critiques of Raymond Williams. Finally, these three traits are strongly evinced in the real-world systemic critiques of liberalism represented in both Heathcliff and Walter White.