Afro Samurai - Essay Example

Afro Samurai From his childhood experience, Afro had many important stories to tell. Violence could be definitely one of them. He was part of a violent environment leading him to become one of those people around him, especially in behavior. In fact, psychology points this out as an important role of the environment and that is to influence human behavior (Feldman 17). The people around him were substantial components of Afro’s immediate environment. His father was part of his environment. In fact, the very symptom showing that Afro acquired such violent behavior from his immediate environment was his ability to wear the same type of clothing his father was also dressing in.

This is an illustration of how Afro remarkably followed his father’s footsteps. The next symptom of violent behavior was his ability to always carry with him a sword wherever he would go. This is an illustration that there would always be a need for him to protect his life, the very thing he learned from the death of his father. Perhaps, such violent behavior could not be relented, but its level might be due to the fact that Afro witnessed how his father was defeated to death. From the assumption that people could substantially learn from the experience they have with their immediate environment, the defeatist level of mentality, therefore, was eventually out of Afro’s mind because he knew exactly from his experiences what it would be like to feel defeat.

He was therefore not pessimistic, but his heart was full of revenge and even retaliating in anger. The causes were his immediate environment and the kind of culture, experience, and the very life that his father imparted to him. Therefore, since everything started from his childhood, Afro must eventually experience the developmental disorder, particularly conduct disorder. The movie depicts this in a specific clip showing Afro as a child who was already bringing a sword with him, dressing like his father, and was ready to fight with the wicked men.

This was not normal at his age considering the level of his strength and his knowledge of the world around him. Counseling is an effective means for this. However, positive behavior reinforcement might also be necessary. As an adult, Afro’s conduct disorder as a child eventually grew into violent behaviors. Treating violent behaviors in the case of Afro as an adult would substantially be difficult because it may be defined as reactive compulsive aggression. In short, his violent behaviors result in aggression with a substantial amount of anger.

This could still be addressed by counseling programs. However, in the case of Afro, his chance of coping might be a bit lower if he would not willing to accept reality and positively learn from his memory. On the other hand, in cognitive psychology, memory is called a process because it involves hierarchical stages starting from encoding, storage, and down to the retrieval of information. It is important to take the case of Afro to illustrate how exactly this works. The encoding stage is called the initial recording of information.

For this stage to become effective, registering information in a meaningful way is necessary (Feldman 182). The death of his father was a meaningful event in Afro’s life. After all, it was his father who must mean a lot to him. In fact, the film depicts this situation when Afro brought with him the head of his father into his bag. This is an illustration of how he greatly integrated his life with his father. In addition, this also illustrates how exactly his father provided meaning in Afro’s life.

Thus, the death of Afro’s father at some certain level had provided him a meaningful way of encoding such information. As a result, encoding of information should involve the death of his father in general, including its type, reason, who caused it, and many other relevant things. This means that the storage of information, the death of his father in general should not be that hard in Afro’s case. After all, from day to day situation, he always encountered swords, violent people, and other related events to his father’s death.

All of these should mean a lot to him because they could associate themselves with his father’s death. In cognitive psychology, the effective encoding happens when there is an enhancement, especially in the retention process of information (Feldman 182). That is the repetition of related events especially in internal or external environments. Finally, when there is proper encoding and storage of information, retrieval would not be that hard because of this level of processing of information. It is for this reason that Afro learned many things in life as a warrior.

His childhood memory remains vivid and clear. He witnessed the violent death of his father and it always reminded him of past horror, the moment when he was still young and lost a special someone in his life. From then on, he lived a life of misery, experiencing abuse and being helpless in the world he lived in. It was not easy for him to recover from such a malady in spirit, mind, and emotion. It would always remain a picture of reality in his mind. In fact, his ultimate goal to kill is purely in retribution for the death of his father.

It was with a cause when he would kill. Although the movie depicts the idea of the battle between good and evil, the entire actuation of Afro significantly mirrored the ultimate experience he had from his past. Therefore, his memory always reminded him of the things he should bear in mind, and fulfill, which eventually led him to set objectives for himself and on behalf of his father. This eventually led him to become safer, especially in protecting his life and his cause. He would never want to experience another defeat just as his father experienced.