Metanoia In American History X

While watching, American History X, I’ve noticed the Derek went through a lot just to find justice, however, he made the wrong decision, which caused him to experience something terrifying. The movie was released in 1998 and became really popular as the years went on. With all the Nazi symbols, gang violence, and jail time it shows a path that Derek took because of the death of his father. The film follows the Christian myth, “Metanoia (shift of the mind)”, which is what Derek went through, then finds salvation during the movie.
In my paper, I’m going to explain the Metanoia that Derek went through throughout this movie. First, I’m going to give a brief description of how he was before the anger. Then, going to describe what he became after
He was never the type of kid that would get in trouble, wasn’t biased against other race and he was also a straight “A” student. However, his dad had brainwash him with stuff about different races, which when his dad dies, it changes Derek view on society and makes him hate other race. The death of Derek’s dad had a big impact on his life. As it showed in the movie, Derek wanted justice, as he was going through the grieving process from his dad’s death. There were several things that Derek did during the time he was angry. One of the first things he did was form the “Skinheads”, which was a Neo-Nazi group that only had whites and hated any other group that wasn’t white. While forming the Skinheads, Derek attacks a store full “illegal immigrants” as he calls them. In the time that Derek is doing some hateful acts against other race, he is being manipulated by a man named “Cameron” who basically is Derek’s mentor in all the stuff that Derek does. Out of things that Derek does, the one thing that puts Derek in jail was when the 3 black guys, who had to leave the courts due to losing them to him in basketball, tried to rob him, but since Danny (Derek’s little brother) told him, it put Derek in a dangerous. So Derek went outside and shot both of them, but one of them was still alive, which was Lawrence (One of the black guys that lost to in basketball), so he told Lawrence to put his mouth on the curb and Derek stomped on his
During his first days in prison, he meets Lamont who is another prisoner in jail. They don’t really hit it off at first. Rather, Derek sees some other Skinheads and send a signal to them to let them know that he wants to be with. However, Derek then sees one of the Skinheads buying something from another gang, which made Derek furious with the Skinheads in prison, so he just decides to not be affiliated with them. However, that backs fire and he gets raped in the shower by the Skinheads. After, the incident, Derek’s old teacher Sweeney visits him prison asks him, “Have anything you’ve done made your life better?”, which Derek decides not to be angry at the world anymore (AHX). Derek later becomes close to Lamont and watches Derek’s back, which he soon thanks Lamont for help when he is leaving