The 2002 film Antwone Fisher, based on a true story written by the real Antwone Fisher, portrays Fisher’s development from an abused and troubled young man to a more self-actualized and healed individual. Directed by and starring Denzel Washington, the movie depicts Antwone’s difficult upbringing, his struggles with anger issues as a young adult, and his journey toward facing his past traumatic experiences and finding resolution. Examining Antwone Fisher through various developmental theories helps illuminate his adverse childhood experiences’ profound impact on his development, the internal conflicts he grapples with, and the growth he demonstrates throughout the film. This analysis will explore Antwone’s setting, analyze his character development through psychoanalytic, psychosocial, cognitive, and moral development theories, discuss assumptions about his past and future development, and examine the issues he faces in finding healing.
Setting
The film Antwone Fisher is set primarily in San Diego, where Antwone Fisher is stationed as a sailor in the U.S. Navy in the early 2000s. Several vital scenes also take place in Cleveland, Ohio, where Antwone spent his traumatic childhood years in foster care. The urban settings of both San Diego and Cleveland help contextualize Antwone’s upbringing as an African-American male from a difficult socioeconomic background. The scenes set on the naval base provide insight into the hypermasculine culture Antwone has immersed himself in as a young adult and the behavioral expectations placed on him as a sailor (Menny, 2023). Meanwhile, the return to his childhood home in Cleveland forces Antwone to confront memories and environments from his painful past. The restrictive settings he inhabits mirror his lack of agency and power over his external circumstances as a child and adolescent.
Character Analysis of Antwone Fisher
Antwone Fisher, the protagonist of the film, is a young African-American sailor in his mid-20s stationed at a naval base in San Diego. Though intelligent and thoughtful, Antwone struggles with severe anger issues and volatility that continually get him into trouble (Washington, 2002). Through sessions with a Navy psychiatrist, flashbacks, and Antwone’s disclosures, viewers come to understand his deep-rooted pain and trauma from a highly abusive childhood.
Antwone never knew his father, as he was killed before Antwone was born. His mother was incarcerated when he was born, and Antwone ended up in an orphanage (Washington, 2002). At age two, he was taken in by a foster family headed by a harsh and cruel religious zealot, Mrs. Tate. The Tate household was characterized by frequent physical and emotional abuse, verbal assaults, deprivation of food and other basic needs, and eventually sexual abuse by another woman living with the family. Antwone suffered chronic trauma throughout his childhood, including abandonment by his mother and lack of any nurturing adult figures.
Antwone joins the Navy as a young adult, providing him with structure and stability. However, his unresolved anger and pain continue to plague him. Antwone gets into frequent fights with fellow sailors and struggles to control his volatile emotional reactions (Washington, 2002). Through therapy with a Navy psychiatrist, Antwone starts addressing his traumatic past. He also develops his first romantic relationship with a young woman named Cheryl and finds healing by connecting with long-lost relatives. By the film’s end, Antwone has gained significant insight into his past and started the integration and recovery process. However, his therapeutic journey has only just begun.
Stages of Development
Antwone Fisher portrays the protagonist at two critical life stages: childhood, approximately ages 2-14, and young adulthood, from ages 18-25. According to Freud’s psychosexual theory, Antwone would be in the phallic stage (3-6 years old) and latency period (6 years to puberty) in his childhood depictions. His young adult self would be in the genital stage. Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development suggest Antwone is in the autonomy vs. shame/doubt stage as a child and intimacy vs. isolation in early adulthood. Piaget’s cognitive development theory indicates Antwone is in the preoperational stage in childhood and the formal operational stage as a young adult. Finally, Kohlberg’s stages of moral development point to Antwone being at the pre-conventional level during childhood and transitioning to the conventional level in early adulthood.
Theoretical Analysis
Freud’s Psychosexual Theory
According to Freud, Antwone’s early childhood years appear to manifest challenges related to the phallic stage, occurring between ages 3 and 6. As the film depicts through troubling scenes of sexual abuse, Antwone struggles to navigate appropriate behavior and boundaries around his sexual impulses. He faces confusion about sexuality and marked distress when his foster aunt initiates inappropriate sexual contact. This suggests potential fixation or developmental difficulty in the phallic stage linked to his experiences of abuse.
In his latency period from age 6 onwards, Antwone does appear to channel his impulses into other pursuits like education, as Freud would suggest. However, the harsh abuse and deprivation people may endure during this stage can also stunt their ability to sublimate their drives healthily (CUNY, 2023). As a young adult, Antwone should be in the genital stage. However, he continues to exhibit unresolved conflicts related to sexuality, intimacy, and sexual identity—signaling lingering developmental challenges rooted in childhood trauma.
Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory
In Erikson’s framework, Antwone should be in the autonomy vs. shame/doubt stage as a child. However, Antwone’s severe abuse and lack of any nurturing caregivers profoundly shake his emerging sense of independence and self-worth. He is made to feel chronic shame about himself and consistently doubt his abilities. His environment interrupts and distorts the autonomy meant to develop in this stage.
As a young adult, Antwone’s struggles suggest he has not resolved the intimacy vs. isolation crisis. He remains isolated and struggles to develop closeness, trust, and empathy in relationships. His first girlfriend, Cheryl, helps him make some positive steps, but he remains hindered by the deeper wounds of his childhood that impede emotional intimacy. Unresolved trauma continues to isolate him.
Piaget’s Cognitive Development
Piaget would categorize Antwone in the preoperational stage as a young child, given his trouble thinking logically about his world. He exhibits magical thinking, for example, about his foster mother’s mood being determined by whether she serves pancakes. However, his cognitive abilities are also limited by the trauma and deprivation he experiences, restricting his ability to progress developmentally.
As a young adult, Antwone has transitioned to Piaget’s formal operational stage, whereby he demonstrates more abstract thinking, meta-cognition, and the ability to consider hypotheticals logically. This enables one to reflect deeply about one’s past and imagine future possibilities through activities like writing poetry (CUNY, 2023). However, his capacity for nuanced thinking has likely been hampered by adverse childhood events.
Kohlberg’s Moral Development
In Kohlberg’s model, young Antwone appears to be functioning at the pre-conventional level of moral reasoning. Given his difficult early environment, he focuses more on punishment and reward than internal ethical principles. His moral sense is motivated by self-interest and survival rather than concern for upholding societal norms or abstract values.
As a young adult, Antwone is transitioning toward the conventional level of moral thinking. He expresses more significant concern for living up to the expectations of his social groups, like the Navy. He also looks to align his behavior with social norms around dating and appropriate expressions of anger. He occasionally references more abstract principles of justice and care. However, his moral reasoning relies heavily on external consequences and norms rather than complex internal values.
Past and Future Development
Although Antwone’s early childhood is not depicted in the film, Freud’s psychosexual theory would suggest that he failed to successfully progress through earlier psychosexual stages as an infant and toddler due to parental abandonment and lack of nurturing. This likely led to developmental delays that manifested in fixation later in the phallic stage. Profound disruption and deficiencies in his earliest development undermined his functioning in subsequent stages.
Erikson would highlight that Antwone did not get an opportunity to establish basic trust as an infant per the stages. Disruption of the foundational stages makes attaining later psychosocial strengths like autonomy significantly harder (CUNY, 2023). Kohlberg would argue Antwone lacked opportunities to build moral reasoning progressively from an early age. And Piaget would emphasize that inadequate cognitive stimulation impeded Antwone’s budding capacities for childhood logical thinking.
In terms of future development, if Antwone continues in therapy and healing, he may progress further developmentally in areas impeded by early childhood adversity. With help, one can strengthen one’s ego functioning, intimacy skills, operational thinking abilities, sense of identity, and internalized moral reasoning (CUNY, 2023). However, the traumatic experiences of his formative years are likely to remain sources of struggle, needing ongoing support. It will be a lifelong journey to overcome the developmental disruptions of his youth.
Issues and Changes in Young Adulthood
As a young adult, Antwone is plagued by many unresolved issues related to past trauma that surface through maladaptive patterns like explosive anger, difficulties with emotional intimacy, and problems with self-worth. However, throughout the film, he starts to take tentative steps forward in several areas of his life under the gentle guidance of his psychiatrist.
Regarding emotional growth, Antwone initially exhibits severe difficulty identifying and expressing his feelings appropriately. His anger often erupts violently and without warning. However, the cathartic experience of disclosing his past abuse to his psychiatrist helps him start processing painful feelings. He also learns to communicate some of his vulnerabilities to his girlfriend, Cheryl. Managing his anger remains a challenge, but he increasingly recognizes its roots.
Through his relationship with Cheryl, Antwone also begins confronting his profound deficits in knowing how to develop emotional and physical intimacy. Their gentle courtship starts teaching him skills for building trust, showing affection, and connecting romantically that were never modeled in his childhood. However, his sexual intimacy remains complicated by past abuse.
Antwone’s most significant achievement on his journey is summoning the courage to return to his hometown and confront figures from his past. By directly engaging with one’s prior abusers, one takes power back and finds some closure (CUNY, 2023). He also discovers extended family members who accept him, finally giving him a sense of belonging. This hints at the emergence of a more coherent identity and improved self-esteem.
Overall, Antwone’s development follows a very uneven trajectory, with areas of both marked impairment and budding growth resulting from—and often occurring in tension with—his traumatic experiences. His development will likely continue to vacillate as he copes with the aftermath of abuse. But the film provides hope he is embarking on a path of healing by starting to address long-ignored wounds constructively.
Conclusion
Antwone Fisher vividly portrays the protagonist’s multifaceted developmental journey from a wounded child to a troubled adult beginning to find his way. Applying psychoanalytic, psychosocial, cognitive, and moral frameworks helps shed light on Antwone’s arrested development resulting from childhood trauma, his struggles to overcome these disruptions, and the tentative personal growth he starts exhibiting. As Antwone progresses through his adverse experiences, glimpses of his resilience and humanity emerge. However, healing the depth of his wounds will undoubtedly be an ongoing, nonlinear process fraught with challenges and backslides. Ultimately, Antwone Fisher conveys an inspiring narrative of human strength coexisting with and sometimes suppressed by human brokenness. Through caring therapeutic relationships, Antwone can start unearthing his wholeness and building a life defined by more than his trauma. His story illustrates the complex interplay between profound developmental deficits and the potential for human growth within and alongside them.
References
CUNY. (2023). Lifespan Theories. CUNY. https://opened.cuny.edu/courseware/lesson/57/overview
Menny, E. (2023). ‘Antwone Fisher’ and the Call of Black Healing In America. Black Catholic Messenger. https://www.blackcatholicmessenger.com/antwone-fisher/
Washington (2002). Antwone Fisher.
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