The Theme of Hope in the Shawshank Redemption

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The Theme of Hope in the "Shawshank Redemption"

“A romantic hero is a man that is superior in degree to other men and his environment, whose life is a sequence of adventures.”   Andy Dufrene in Stephen King’s “Shawshank Redemption” is a romantic hero according to Northrop Frye’s theory, which is derived from Jesus Christ. It describes the development of a romantic hero in six stages: Birth of the hero, innocence of the hero, achievements of the hero, maintenance of innocents, contemplative withdrawal from world, and the death and resurrection of the hero. It will be made evident that Andy’s entrance into prison symbolizes the birth of a hero, and his innocence is shown by his interactions with the ‘sisters’.  Despite his powerless situation Andy acquires many achievements and manages to maintain his innocents. Doing time in solitary confinement gives Andy a chance to contemplate his escape, this he accomplishes by tunneling out of the prison.  By using specific references to the plot of the play and Frye’s theory, the foregoing statements will prove to be valid.
       
“She shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” The first two stages in the development of a romantic hero are, birth and innocents of the hero. Like a new born child the hero is coerced into a new environment. For Andy Dufrene the new environment was prison, and his entrance was similar to the birth of a child. “They march you in naked as the day you were born.”  The imagery of his first day is similar to the symbols of birth. Before the inmates can actually enter the general population, they are stripped naked, washed down, and deloused. Water is the symbol of the beginning and the end of a cycle. The beginning of Andy’s adventure was symbolized by him entering prison naked and dripping wet.  What is more innocent than a new born child? Maybe the question that should be asked is. What is more tempting to homosexuals in jail, than a weak naked man?

This is the second phase in Andy’s development, his innocence.  Being naive to prison life, he is taken advantage of by a group of homosexual men called the sisters. “Because of his small size and fair good looks, the sisters were after Andy from the day he walked in.” For years the sisters tortured him, but eventually the leader of the gang was removed from the prison. This removal symbolizes the end of the second phase, and marks the beginning of Andy’s quest towards his achievements.
       
“Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.” Like Christ, Andy achieved many goals during his time in jail, especially after he got the sisters off of his back.  “In jail a man has nothing but time. Some build things like little matchstick houses, Andy, he built a library.” This proves that he is also superior to his environment which is supposed to keep him from leading any kind of a privileged life. Whilst at the head of the library, Andy helps many inmates pass their high school equivalency test.  Andy did taxes for all of the guards and the paper work for the warden’s dirty money. For this he received special treatment.  This is the reason the sisters left him alone.  Andy was told that if he was seen with the slightest bit of blood coming from his behind the guards would make sure that all of the sisters went to bed with a bad headache. He was lucky that he got this kind of special treatment because without it, he would not have survived his entire sentence with the sisters. Despite all of his hardships he still maintained that bit of hope which kept him sane. This is the fourth stage in Frye’s theory, maintaining the integrity of the innocent world against the assault of experience.  “But somehow that gray meat son of a bitch managed to bring in something else as well. A sense of worth, maybe, or a feeling that he would be the winner in the end.”  Andy Dufrene was no fool, he kept hope alive. While everyone was living a regular prison life, he was digging a hole to freedom through his cell wall. This hole was his hope, and no matter what had happened to him, be it cruel punishment from the warden or an encounter with the sisters, he always had something to keep his spirits up.
       
“And he went forward a little , and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.” This is what Jesus did in Gethsemane when waiting to be betrayed by Judas. It was his contemplative withdrawal from the world. Andy undergoes this phase in a different form. He was placed in solitary confinement for two months, and given only bread and water.  This came about when Andy had just been told by a new inmate that his old cell mate once told him a story of how he killed a rich golf-pro and the woman he was having an affair with. This made Andy very excited because the convict also said that they blamed the murders on the woman’s hot shot lawyer. This is exactly how Andy was convicted, except he was a banker, not a lawyer. When Andy tries to convince the warden to find the convict so he could have a second trial, he was thrown in solitary confinement for two months.  In these two months Andy must have thought of his escape every minute, because when he was released from solitary he didn’t waste anytime. A month later when the guards did the usual morning role call there was one name that didn’t get called, Andy Dufrene. His escape was symbolic of the death and resurrection of Jesus. First his death, crawling through a narrow stone tunnel then through another narrow pipe filled with human bodily waste. Finally his resurrection, when he emerges from the pipe to find himself standing in a river.  Once again the imagery is that of water, except this time it is to mark the end of a cycle. It symbolizes the end of his adventure and the final phase of his development as a romantic hero.
                
Andy Dufrene in Stephen King’s “Shawshank Redemption” is a romantic hero according to Northrop Frye’s theory.  Frye’s theory which is derived from Jesus Christ describes the development of a romantic hero in six stages: Birth, innocence, achievements, maintenance , contemplative withdrawal from world, and the death and resurrection of the hero. Andy Dufrene’s development as a romantic hero is very similar to Jesus Christ in a symbolic manner. Two men, superior to others and the environment in which they dwell. They each achieve more than the average person, despite constant oppression. But what makes these two men heroes, is a amaranthine will to persevere. Considering what Andy had to pass through on his way to freedom, one might question whose will is strong.   “Andy Dufrene, the man who crawled through a tunnel of crap and came out clean.”

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The topic could be Keeping Hope Alive.
Andy never lost hope of being found innocent. He knew he had to stay alive and managed to do it while keeping his dignity.
Like he told Red, you can't let hope die, you have to keep it in your heart, the "Man" can't touch what's in your heart.

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Shawshank Redemption Themes
                                                                                                                                                                                                  Frank Darabont directed The Shawshank Redemption and wrote the screenplay based on the novel Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by author Stephen King. The movie was made in 1994 and produced by Niki Marvin. The movie stars Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins as two convicts serving time in a New England prison named Shawshank. Tim Robbins plays a man named Andy Dufresne, a banker, who gets convicted of murdering his wife and her lover and is sent to prison in Shawshank. Andy eventually becomes good friends with a fellow convict by the name of Ellis Boyd Redding(Morgan Freeman) who is able to get anything for anyone within reason. The story follows the prison life of Andy Dufresne and his eventual escape from Shawshank's walls. The elements of unique cinematography, a formalistic style of direction, and an excellent screenplay, Darabont uses in this film are paramount to portraying the themes, and conveying the storyline.   

The most unique part about the style of the movie is in the cinematography by Roger Deakins. Deakins utilizes tools such as a blue filter in order to convey emotions, and portray scenes through different lights. The filters give a special beauty to the scenes, which in turn causes more dramatic feelings for the audience. With this blue filter the movie tends to bring out the two different colors of blue and brown. These colors are dually used by Deakins to portray either dark or light. The blues of the uniforms are all the more dramatic compared to the drab brown buildings surrounding the prisoners. The colors also produce dramatic irony in the last scene of Red and Andy on the beach. The blue and brown colors that once gave feelings of confinement and despair in the prison are now colors of freedom and happiness. Tools such as the filter are expertly used by cinematographers like Deakins to pinpoint details in scenes, and to portray the desired mood or tone of the film.

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--Testy94

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A film has: Conflict, Action, Dialogue, Setting, Atmosphere and Point of view. Choose two of these and, with close reference to ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, show how they are used to aid the communication of a key theme  from the film.         Hope is a key theme in ‘The Shawshank Redemption’. Two major elements that are used to aid the communication of this theme are         Conflict is used throughout the entire film to highlight the key theme of hope. A prime example of this conflict is Ellis Redding (Red) who is in conflict with himself. Red simply refuses to have any hope in his prison life.

It is noticeable that Red is afraid of hope for the same reason.  Red replies  saying "Hope is a dangerous thing, Drive a man insane.   Red believes that hope is a dangerous thing and aftermeeting Andy Dufresne is in a constant battle with himself, trying not to trust in hope after witnessing it destroy many people before him. Hope is communicated effectively through  dialogue and conflict in "The Shawshank Redemption"tm. Dialogue plays a vital part in the communication of the main idea of hope.  Red"tms conflict becomes more evident when Andy gives him a harmonica, only a shortperiod after Andy"tms debate with Red about music freeing the soul and the fact the hope is a good thing.  Andy describes how the music cannot be taken away from him.  Most of the dialogue that involves hope has Andy involved and a good example of this dialogue is when Andy is let out of the hole after playing the music over the loud speaker.  Andy then asks Red if he has ever felt that way about music and Red talks about playing a harmonica when hewas younger and says that it didn"tmt make much sense on the inside.  Andy is shocked and insist that it makes the most sense on the inside and theimportance of it to remind of the outside world and hope. " This is reinforcing his fear of hope and trying to deter Andy from relying on hope.  Even in darkness of  his cell, Red onlydares to blow his harmonica once and reacts by clenching it tightly, frightened by the idea that music frees the soul and the hope that Andydescribed.                                

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One particular thematic statement that is brought out in King's work is that the individual pursuit of hope is one that knows no limitation.  Andy's imprisonment does not deter him from believing in and pursuing hope and freedom.  This individual quest is one that is not stopped by the various obstacles that are placed in front of him.  It is one that he believes internally and one that he zealously pursues.  At the same time, Red must battle through his own sense of fighting through obstacles that compel him to lose his own individual identity for that of the institution, of Shawshank.  While Andy singularly pursues his individual claim, Red's is a bit more elusive and one that he embraces after some level of challenge and difficulty.