Themes In The Shawshank Redemption

In 1994, Frank Darabont’s film ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ received a poor reception when released; it only made a $0.3m profit. More recently the film has become known as one of the greatest movies of all time, it has inspired hope in many people, helping them to lose weight, leave abusive marriages and such like. The film is based mainly upon two convicts, and the idea of hope. Andy Dufresne is a ‘Hot Shot Banker’ imprisoned with two life sentences, for the suspected murder of his wife and her lover and ‘Red’ (Morgan Freeman) whom Andy redeems hope in, along with the other convicts, saving them from institutionalisation.

One of the best things about this movie is its portrayal of prison life. There are many movies that deal with prison and the life of prisoners while incarcerated, but Shawshank I feel does the best job of giving you a real feeling of what prison life

The Shawshank Redemption is a high quality film with many themes, that are going to be explored. There are themes in any form of entertainment. But, the Shawshank Redemption is much different, in that is so packed full of them, that there is no good place to start looking for them. For that matter, there also is no right answer in which themes are the most important. Therefore, the Shawshank Redemption’s most important themes are freedom and confinement, transformation, and hope.

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.

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.

knowing that Andy is vulnerable, gets him on the tar duty and seems to take him

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

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.

To me Shawshank Redemption, seemed to be like any other prison film. A story of a prisoner’s tough life, when surrounded by the massive walls of a brutal American prison, treated as scum. In some genius way, they manage to trick the management and escape through a tiny tunnel and out as free men.

At the beginning of the Shawshank Redemption, Andy gets framed for the murder of his cheating wife. Which makes his life take a darker turn with him going to Shawshank prison. Shawshank prison is one of the worst prisons ever, the prison guards abuse the prisoners, and the warden orders them to do so and will do anything for money. The prison uses fear as a way to keep the prisoners in line. When you first show up to Shawshank they take you in, strip you down, and spray you with water. After that, they throw this powder on you then give you your clothes and walk you to your cell naked. The prisoners have a game to see who breaks down first, so they yell at the new prisoners until one breaks. Their goal is to break the person they bet on this shows fear because when a new prisoners break they cry and become very scared and the one who broke in the film was murdered by a guard.

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 film has some additional storytelling that I would like to discuss. The Shawshank Redemption is done in chronological order, but there are some parts when the characters flash back to earlier times in their live so you can understand what is happening in the film. This is done so the viewer still has an easy way to follow the movie. The characters of the film face both internal and external conflict. The internal conflict is should I continue this life when I know I am innocent, and the external conflict is from the prison, the prisoners, and the prison staff. The film does contain symbolism. An example of the symbolism is when the warden learns of his fate and his last judgment by reading the morning newspaper of himself and the prison being corrupt. Additionally, symbolism is used with the holy bible the warden reads; when he finds the hammer that Andy uses to dig out of the prison. There is a passage from Exodus that is used to symbolize the warden’s salvation and Andy’s escape. Also, there is a metaphor that I remember and it happens when the librarian (Brooks Hatlen) is freed from jail and he takes his own life. At the same time he hangs himself his bird (Jake) fly’s away and is freed. The metaphor is that the librarian is free of his lifelong nightmare of being told what

The area of the criminal justice system that is showcased in the Shawshank Redemption is the prison system. By following the story of the main character Andy, both the problems and realities of the system are highlighted. Throughout the film, the characters are portrayed in many ways. The most alarming ways that the prisoners in the film is as lower class citizens. By making this point, the writers are eluding to the fact that the system is corrupt because of the subculture that exist within it.

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.