Essay On The Shawshank Redemption

Imagine someone close that’s lived the straight and narrow to get where they are at. They are not perfect, maybe they could have put a little more time into their assignment at work or held their temper towards the grandpa driving too slow in front of them, but they’re just human living life the best way they know how. When a not-so-freak accident occurs and they find themselves behind bars imprisoned for the rest of their life. Sounds like the plot to “Shawshank Redemption” right? At this very instance, this story is being told of ordinary citizens behind the curtains of the New York Court System in rapidly increasing numbers. What may seem like an isolated incident is part of an ever-growing

Red is very reluctant to accept hope, even stating in the film ‘Hope is a dangerous thing; hope can drive a man insane’ and this is expressed through shadows cast on him whilst Andy is shown in the light. This idea of hopelessness exaggerates the redemption of hope expressed later on in the film, an example of this is right at the very start of the film when the man is beaten so badly by the prison guards that he dies, Andy’s asks a key question that nobody can answer; ‘What was his name?’. This hopelessness is then contrasted when the friendships are formed later on in the film, when everybody becomes close, which is confirmed when Andy bargains with the guards and consequently wins three bottles of beer for each of his work mates. Andy’s friends and he are regularly shown laughing together or helping one another to cope, Darabont successfully reflects hope into the eyes of the viewer through these friendships. Gestures such as the harmonica illuminate this point when Red begins to create music.

The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King is both a wonderful film and a brilliantly written short story. There are many themes represented in each form of The Shawshank Redemption. The one major theme that interests me in both the film and the story is freedom. Freedom serves a large purpose for both the story's writer and the filmmaker. Both use similar examples to signify freedom, not only in the jail, but also in a larger context about life. There are many events and examples in both the film and the short story that signifies the theme of freedom. The one main difference is when the film uses the director’s technique to portray a feel of freedom for the inmates. The overall three issues used in this essay are all linked to the

The movie the Shawshank Redemption, based on the book by Steven King, I believe is one of the best movies ever made. The portrayal of prison life in the movie is the best I have seen and a star-studded cast including Morgan Freeman supports the characters and brings to life the everyday struggles of life behind bars. In this paper I will relate topics from class to the movie and discuss information we have learned through out the semester.

Andy, who had the hope that he would escape, was able to adjust to life outside. He posed as Randall Stephens and used the laundered money to live his life. However for Red, life was not only difficult, but Red had become institutionalized like Brooks. For the past 40 years, Red had asked to use the bathroom, once he got out of prison those habits stuck with him. Red had difficulty leaving his prison life behind, versus Andy, who was able to live his life normally. Eventually, this lead to Red having thoughts of committing a crime to re-enter prison life. Red had never planned a life for when he got out of prison, because he never had the hope of getting out. Red struggled to find his place in society and felt he did not matter. This made life extremely difficult for Red and everyday felt like a burden. However, Red remembered the promise he made to Andy and decided to follow through on it. When Red crossed the border to meet up with his old friend Andy, he stated that he finally believed in hope. This shows how powerful hope can be and how it can change one’s perspective of

Directed by Frank Darabont, The Shawshank Redemption tells the Story of Andy Dufrane, a man who has been wrongly convicted of murder and must endure life inside the harsh and corrupt Shawshank prison, but despite this he never loses hope of finding freedom. Hope is an important inspiring idea in this film, as it is what sustains him during the long and difficult years within the prison, and it is the result of this enduring hope that Andy finally finds freedom. There are many visual and oral techniques used throughout the film to portray the idea of hope. This includes the hope that Andy holds, and

The Shawshank Redemption movie is about a man named Andy Dufresne who was falsely accused of murder and was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of his wife and her lover. Being in jail, Andy faced many problems of being abused, but he also gained a strong friendship with a man named Red. Many of the things that the prisoners had to face showed a sociological perspective on how life was in jail and how it affected the prisoners. In Shawshank prison, the functionalism theory, the conflict perspective, and the control theory shows the life and adjustments a prisoner has to make in order to survive going into a new world.

The movie, Shawshank Redemption, is about a story of two men, Andy Dufrane and Red Abbott, who spent most of their lives in a prison together going through the ups and downs of prison life. Andy, who was once a vice-president at a bank, was in prison for murdering his wife and her lover, when he caught them in bed together; he was giving life in prison. Whereas Red, also a convicted murderer, got life but with a chance of parole. The two grew close to each other because they were both very educated men and had the same interests. After five years of doing the laundry, the warden thought it would in the prisons best interest to use such an educated man as Andy in the library. So they transferred Andy from the laundry to

An important theme in Frank Darabont’s film The Shawshank Redemption is hope. The film demonstrates that hope is a good thing and shows the consequences in having and lacking hope. It is important that Darabont’s film showed the theme of hope as it us also important in our lives today because having or lacking in hope affects people personally, nationally and worldwide. In our everyday lives we are presented with cases of people having hope through our own or someone we knows personal experiences and on the news. In most cases, hope is portrayed in a positive light as it helps people get through tough situations. The film makes its viewers think about how having or lacking hope can effect out lives in reality and makes them conclude

A man by the name of Andy Dufresne was convicted of murdering his wife and her lover and was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in Shawshank prison. He was an obvious black sheep among the prisoners, but as time went on he grew relationships with the crooks and realized the injustice in the justice system. In the creation of friendship between Red and Andy, hope was spread throughout the prison. While many themes are present in the film The Shawshank Redemption, hope, friendship, and injustice are also relevant in the world today.

“The Shawshank redemption” is a film in which Andy Dufresne is wrongfully given two life sentences for the murder of his wife and her lover and is sent to the Shawshank prison where Andy is subjected to a variety of different beatings by the guards and other inmates, even being raped by other inmates. After getting involved with doing the guards taxes the crooked warden forces him to hide his many untaxed revenues. After Andy escapes he leaves the jail in scandal by giving evidence to the press surrounding the warden’s dodgy dealings. This paper will be analysing how the director, Frank Darabont uses stylistic features to present the idea of hope in the film. The primary features used in this film was symbolism but there is the use of lighting

In the film, “The Shawshank Redemption” directed by Frank Darabont, symbolism was used to highlight the main idea of holding onto hope. Darabont has effectively used different symbols throughout the film to convey the themes of hope and freedom in Shawshank. “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” This quote said by Andy Dufresne in a letter to Red shows that Shawshank was portrayed as a place of hopelessness at the start. But it was through the use of these symbols, music, the library, and the birds, that made the viewer truly understand how “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

The theme of hope is both displayed in the book and film when Red talks about Andy’s demeanor while in prison. Red states how prison has not changed Andy and how he wears his freedom “like an invisible coat”......“He never developed the walk that men get when their day is over and they are going back to their cells for another endless night,” (King 72). This “invisible coat” is hope. It has helped Andy live on as a free man in his spirit. During his time spent at Shawshank, Andy voluntarily completed many tasks. He took over

Survival is the key struggle in The Shawshank Redemption. This film takes place in the corrupt Shawshank State Penitentiary where mental and physical abuses inflicted upon prisoners are the hard realities of the system. For the prisoners of Shawshank, life is often bleak and violent. However, the will to survive is what keeps the characters motivated to retain their humanity and challenge the institutionalization of Shawshank. In particular, the film’s main protagonists, Andy Dufresne and Ellis “Red” Redding, exemplify the struggle for survival in the face of a corrupt, frightening, and oppressive prison system. In order to survive the harsh realities of the world, people adapt with personal traits like courage and resourcefulness in addition to forming community with other people.

Moreover another production aspect used to show us this idea is music. Music is used to create mood and help us understand what a character is going through. We hear violin and string instruments as Andy arrives to Shawshank Prison. Violin and string instruments are used in movies a lot to make the viewer feel sad about something happening or about to happen. We first hear Orchestral Music when we are shown Shawshank Prison we hear it playing in the background low volume and slow tempo and this increases in volume and tempo to create a sad mood for Andy’s arrival and emphasise that the prison is a dark and depressing place to end up. It suggests to the viewer that the prison is a sad place to end up in and that it is a corrupted place too. It makes us worried for Andy who seems like a good guy.