Symbolism In The Shawshank Redemption

(Part I) Nicole Rafter identifies several stock characteristics that dominate the traditional film. First, there is the convict buddy. In The Shawshank Redemption our innocent protagonist Andy is quickly befriended by prison veteran, Red. Red’s voice can be heard narrating his thoughts about his friend Andy. As the story goes on, their relationship is further explored to the point that the last shot is them reuniting. Common to traditional prison films is a paternalistic warden, but this is not the case in Shawshank Prison. The warden here is very greedy and immoral which is a general a characteristic of more recent prison films. Another stock character is a brutish guard which we see exemplified in Captain Byron Hadley. He beats a man to death in the first act of the film. Finally, we have Andy, who is the young hero, or at least he is fairly young when he goes into prison. He is innocent and thus exemplifies Rafter’s stock character of having an unjustly accused protagonist. Rafter also notes stock plots that often play out. In The Shawshank Redemption, the innocent hero Andy escapes while simultaneously bringing condemnation on the unjust members of the prison. This plot corresponds to one of Rafter’s traditional prison plots (2006, 166). Lastly, there is the idea of stock themes in traditional prison films. Again, The Shawshank Redemption falls in line with Rafter’s theme of the unjustly jailed hero fighting against the unfair system. Rafter writes, “To restore justice,

While many movies have depicted various areas of the criminal justice system, the Shawshank Redemption is like no other. I first watched the film many years ago on television and since have seen it numerous times on platforms such as DVD and Netflix. The key stars in the production, are actors Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Other standouts that who are featured in supporting roles included actors Bob Gunton and Clancy Brown. The film was directed by Frank Darabont who is known for criminal justice films such as the Green Mile. The Shawshank Redemption was first released in theaters September of 1994.

Hope is what you dream about coming true in your life. The film Shawshank Redemption directed by Frank Darabont is a story about a man called Andy Dufresne. Being convicted for the murder of his wife and her lover. Now he has to live his life in Shawshank prison for the rest of his life. Despite this, Andy tries to make the prison a better place by giving hope to the prisoners. Andy does this by giving beers to his fellow prisoners, plays music throughout the whole prison, and finally builds a library. I will be discussing film techniques for each example.

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

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.

Shawshank Redemption; a movie comprised of many concepts from our current correctional system. The main character, Andy Dufresne was sentenced to prison for the murder of his wife and her lover. He was to serve a consecutive sentence of two life terms. Dufresne is an educated man and was employed as a banker. His fellow inmate, Ellis Boyd Redding, nicknamed as Red, was serving three life sentences for murder. The ole wise man helped Dufresne endure his days behind bars and a friendship developed. Red was known as the go to man for items within the prison. Andy fascinated by rocks asked Red for a rock hammer. Later to find out, Andy had used the very same hammer to dig a hole in the wall and escape. Andy Dufresne was forced to be at Shawshank State Penitentiary for 19 years as an innocent man. Dufresne endured assault, harassment and blackmail in the period of his stay. The advantages to his stay were the friendships he built and helping fellow inmates get their General Equivalency Diploma (GED). Red was finally paroled after serving 40 years of his sentence. Red had a hard time adapting to society after being institutionalized, as he called it, for such a long time. In the end, both Dufresne and Red were reunited in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. Shawshank Redemption explored many areas of the correctional system such as, punishment, prison rape, corruption, institutionalization, rehabilitation, reintegration and parole.

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 other theme of freedom comes in both the film and the story, when Andy Dufresne got beer for all of the crew that tarred the prison's roof. In this example, even Red stated that the break "lasted twenty minutes, the beer-break, and for those twenty minutes we felt like free men."(48) Red recalls that the crew felt such freedom that they "could have been drinking beer and tarring the roof of one of our own houses."(48) This example serves the purposes of both the story's writer and the filmmaker because it shows the reader and/or viewer that this event happened because Andy wanted himself and his 'co-workers' to feel freedom. This event occurred because he made business dealings with "the hardest screw that ever walked a turn at the Shawshank State Prison" (48). Andy was always known to have something different to him, "a sense of his own worth,

Freedom and confinement is the third most important theme in the movie, the Shawshank Redemption. There are many aspects of the inmates talking about what freedom is like, and how they are confined to Shawshank prison for a long time. In Shawshank they quite literally cannot do anything they want, they have to ask for everything. This can be no better seen than when Captain Byron Hadley said, “You eat when we say you eat! You s*** when we say you s***! You p*** when we say you p***!” Not only is this line of thought present in a fictional prison, but also in real life. There are TV shows out there that follow the cops of real life prisons, and real life prisoners do not have much more freedom. Then again, all things considered, prisoners have some freedoms, mainly in what they do during their yard times. The people who have it the worst, the one’s who have it like the quote, are the people who live under complete dictatorships. They cannot do anything, and I mean anything without the consent of

The film Shawshank Redemption was released in 1995 and directed by Frank Darabont and Of Mice and Men directed by Gary Sinise released on 1992 based on the John Steinbeck novel both discuss themes of escape, friendship and becoming free from the issues that impact the main characters. Both directors convey the difficult lives of the characters in America, during the 1930s. Shawshank Redemption set inside a prison looks at the 20 year period of wrongly convicted Andy Dufrense and his friendship with Red. Of Mice and Men highlights the lives of poor laborers during the great depression. Lennie and George have a complicated friendship, but they rely on each other in this time of need. The use of setting, characterization and symbolism emphasizes the key themes allowing the audience to connect with each character. Both directors effectively illustrate to the audience, the hardships of the characters by capturing the lives of those that strive to make their lives better and seek the freedom they deserve.

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.

The Shawshank Redemption is a prison drama movie released in 1994 and is based on a novella named “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”. The novella was written by Stephen King and published in 1982 in a compilation of four novellas which was named Different Seasons. “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” was the first novella in the book; King called this first chapter HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL. The rest of the novella chapters had references to summer, fall and winter. However, King pointed directly to the main theme of the novella by his emphasis on HOPE. Imprisonment is obviously an isolating and fearful experience. Ironically, after long incarceration, many prisoners become institutionalized and so used to the bars, the tight schedules and the prison guards that they become afraid of freedom or even the hope of freedom. As King stated in an interview, “What are we afraid of, as humans? Chaos. The outsider. We’re afraid of change. We’re afraid of disruption, and that is what I’m interested in.” (Lehmann-Haupt, www.theparisreview.org) Both the book and the movie explore these fears, but keep hope alive in the human condition by describing one prisoner’s ability to retain his self-worth despite being in a hopeless situation. His outlook on life, his “inner light” kept him hopeful that he could become free again.

What is motivation? As manager’s, motivation is one of the most vital and crucial assets to possess in managing a business. This drive is a critical tool to use in the work place and determine the success or failure of an organization. Motivation is a driving force that initiates and directs behavior. In other words, motivation is an internal energy that drives an individual to do something in order to achieve a certain goal. Therefore, creating a motivating environment in the workplace will lead to happy employees. Creating a work environment like this, managers can expect low staff turnovers, improved productivity, happy customers, and better financial performance. Therefore, the input of motivation use towards employees determines the output efficiency of the company. However, everyone involved in an organization is motivated differently. Everybody has their own individual needs in regards to motivation. Depending on how motivated a person is, determines the effort that individual puts into the work and therefore, how productive they are.

dark suit. We next see him on the bus. The camera is set in front of

1. A degradation ceremony is a ceremony in which people are stripped of their personal identities and thrown into a brand new situation; something that they have not experienced before. An example of this from the movie was when the men first arrived at Shawshank Prison at the beginning of the movie. As they were walking in, they were surrounded by the “experienced” convicts and teased. They were then stripped naked, covered in powder to make sure they did not have lice, and then forced to walk throughout the prison with everyone staring at them. No one should have to go through this, the act was humiliating enough. This degradation ceremony was like a welcoming to the new convicted felons, and