The Shawshank Redemption A film study

Summary: The Shawshank Redemption is about Andy Dufresne, a young vice president of a prestigious Portland, Maine bank. Due to overwhelming circumstantial evidence, he is wrongfully convicted of killing his wife and her lover. He is then sent to jail where he learns lessons about life through his friends and becomes part of a corrupt scheme to launder money. After nineteen years Andy tunnels out of the prison into freedom. While it appears simple on the surface, through the use of many techniques such as title, colors, symmetry, names, numbers, symbols, irony, bible references, and others, The Shawshank Redemption gains a deeper meaning.

Red Red is the lifeline of the prison, the man who can smuggle almost anything into Shawshank from the outside world. By making himself indispensable to the other inmates, Red affords himself protection and an esteemed place in the pecking order of the prison yard. He forces the other men to do business on his terms and knows full well the need to defend his own interests in a world where violence and exploitation are the norm. Ultimately, however, Red’s hardened stance conceals his fear and insecurity as he struggles to make sense of his life both in and out of prison. Even though Red’s narrative focuses on Andy and his eventual escape, Red admits that the story is really all about himself. Andy’s inner confidence and sense of self-worth represent the part of Red that Hadley, Norton, and the other prison authorities never managed to crush. Although Red has undoubtedly thought of escaping numerous times during his thirty-eight years in prison, it is Andy’s resolute sense of hope that Red admires. Red knows that hope is what keeps him and every other inmate alive.

Andy Dufresne Andy is an enigma to Red and the other inmates, a man they admire but never really understand. Andy’s calm, cool collectedness govern his interactions with the world around him, and he rarely succumbs to emotion or cheap sentiment. What many inmates take for snobbery is actually reserve and caution as Andy tries to stay one step ahead of his enemies. Without this strength and inner resolve, Andy would never have survived his twenty-eight years in prison, nor managed to escape. Andy emerges as an object of fascination for many of his fellow prisoners, a figure onto whom they project their various thoughts of the ideal man: Andy, the man who can talk down the guards; Andy, the man who can manipulate the warden; and Andy, the man who can escape out from under everyone’s noses.

Samuel Norton Warden Norton embodies the hypocrisies and contradictions of the penitentiary system. The national exposure and adulation he gets for his “Inside-Out” program conceals the corruption that prevails during his tenure and the campaign of threats, intimidation, abuse, and excessive cruelty he employs to maintain control of the inmates. At times aligned with images of death—his face is compared to a cold slate tombstone—Norton is a self-deluded despot who justifies his exploitation and the promotion of his self-interest at the expense of others in the name of his faith and the fire-and-brimstone Bible passages he often quotes.

Tommy Williams A young inmate. A career criminal, Tommy has served time in another prison with Elwood Blatch, the man who privately admits to killing Andy’s wife and her lover. Tommy offers to help Andy prove his innocence, but Norton orders him killed before this can happen.

Byron Hadley Byron Hadley is the captain of the guard. He is a hard man, although the story occasionally exposes his compassionate side. Hadley carries out the instructions of the warden, including the shooting of Tommy. The two key moments involving Hadley are when Andy arranges to complete his inheritance tax paperwork, with which he secures his position with the guards and his fellow inmates, and secondly when Hadley "takes care" of Bogs, after Bogs and The Sisters attack Andy. Hadley is arrested by the police after Andy escapes.

Brooks Hatlen Brooks is the veteran inside Shawshank. He has a bird called "Jake" and is the librarian of Shawshank. When he gets paroled he holds a knife to Heywood's neck. Brooks is afraid of life outside of Shawshank, as he has become institutionalized. Inside Shawshank he is a respected man, outside he is a former convict, and of a low position in society. Once outside of Shawshank Brooks works in a grocery store, but later hangs himself as he feels he has no quality of life. His actions cause the remaining inmates of Shawshank to fear the outside world. Andy tries to remind his fellow inmates that they must believe in hope.