The Shaw shank Redemption directed by Frank Darabont, based on a short story by Stephen King and directed by Frank Darabont, is an extraordinary movie about hope, friendship and suffering in life. Wrongfully accused and convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, a banker Andy Dufresne arrived at Shawshank prison in the year 1947 to join Red and other multiple inmates. Andy undergoes a variety of bad experiences during his jail time. However, his innocence does not let Andy down. Fortunately, Andy realizes that he is the reason to inspire and give life to inmates, whose life has been stuck for years in the prison. Hence, even in such terrible circumstances, he is able to maintain his pride, humanity and hope in order to survive. Andy early observes three vicious rudiments that help him decide to escape from prison to live a free life. Andy first discovers the brutality of the prison displayed from the start of the film, when one of the new inmates asks when they eat, and he is cruelly beaten up by a guard, and when ‘Fat-ass’ is beaten to death by Byron Hadley.
The life that welcomed Andy at Shawshank was unfair. The brutality at the prison was enormous. Andy and the other new inmates were ushered into the prison bus. The first phase of the brutality unfolds when the prisoners alighted from the bus chained together in a single file. Andy recalls stumbling on a man in front of him, and the captain of the guard slams his club on Andy’ s stomach as the spectators cheered.” Andy and the others were paraded along, forced to work in tiny steps, flinging under the barrage and the old-timers shaking the fence to scare the newcomers” (Darabont 13). One of the prisoners, Fat Ass, asks when they will eat, and the captain of the guard screams right in his face and rams the tip of his club into the Fat Ass’ belly in front of Norton, the warden. The prisoners’ conditions in the cell are pathetic as Andy reveals to us how the prisoners undressed in front of the guards, awaiting to have a shower. A prisoner is slammed against the back of the cage, powder thrown all over him making them gasp their breath and blink from the powder in their eyes. The guards then open fire hose to spray them with water. This shows the mistreatments, in which Andy underwent in the prison yet not guilty of murdering his wife.
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Despite all these brutalities in prison, Andy still stood for hope, humanity and friendship. He sympathized with his fellow prisoners and loved them. Andy shows this in several instances, including buying a drink to his co-workers. He says, “a man, who is working outdoors, feels more like a man if he can have a bottle of suds” (Darabont 58). At this state, the guard Hadley who had been very brutal, feels touched by the act of Andy and asks the prisoners to drink while the beer was still cold. Red, a prisoner at the Shawshank, says that they sat and drank with the sun on their shoulders and felt like free men. That they could have been tarring the roofs off their houses, and that they were loads of all creation. Andy had lit some hope in this prisoner as depicted in his words. The passion for friendship is shown when Andy separates Brooks and Heywood when Brooks is threatening Heywood with a sword. Andy tells Brooks Hatlen that everybody knew him as a reasonable man and tells him to put back the knife. Brooks Hatlen withdraws the knife and dissolved into Andy’s arms heavily sobs. Days after Brooks had been released, he writes back to Andy apologizing to Heywood that he was sorry for putting a knife on his throat. This is an instance that Andy preached friendship among the prisoners.
When Andy is reassigned a duty at the Shawshank prison library to work with Brooks, a librarian who had had no assistant for over 37 years, he takes this opportunity to transform the library. Andy continuously wrote letters requesting for funds to the state senate. Finally, the state senate allocates him funds for his library project. An amount of two hundred dollars and the library district had responded with a charitable donation of the used books and sundries. Every week he continued writing letters twice to the Senate until the Senate appropriation committee voted an annual payment of five hundred dollars to shut him. These funds were aimed at improving the prison library. In 1963, Brooks Hatlen Memorial Library revealed all its glory, shelves lined with books, tables, chairs and a few potted plants. Andy had transformed a broom closet smelling turpentine into the best prison library in England. Andy admits that he had built the library to enable dozens of guys get their high school diploma. One benefit of this project is Tommy, who joyfully completes his high school Diploma in the prison. When working in the library, Andy also did taxes. Dekins approaches him with the idea of setting up trust funds for his kids’ education, and he gives him a financial plan. It is noted the Andy did taxes, and in the following April he had done half the guard tax returns. The year after, he did them all including the wardens.
Andy is doing good shade light to many prisoners. When he escaped from prison, he further reported the corruption at the Shawshank prison leading to the arrest of Norton and Handy. This brought an end to corruption and brutality at the Shawshank prison. Indeed, Andy was a light and his innocence set him free. In his letter to Red, Andy says that hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and good things never dies.
