The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994) - Hope

[Jtan]

Frank Darabon'ts 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption plays a lot with the juxtaposition of hope and institutionalization. However, is the film implying that the threat of the institution, or the fear of being institutionalized must be present in order for that hope to exist? If so, can a free man really feel the excitement that Red states "only a free man can feel"? I think in the end, the film falls short at talking about what happens when that fear, or to use Hegelian terms, Angst is not present when it comes to hope. It also raises the question of if we can ever be free from being institutionalized. Within the film, institutionalization refers to the inmates becoming codependent on the prison itself, but this can be applied to the broader society and a consumerist culture.

Throughout the film, Andy constantly brings up and tries to instill hope within the inmates of Shawshank. He says that hope is something that is not made of stone and is the one thing that the guards cannot touch. While Red dismisses them as pipe dreams, it seems that Andy uses them to protect himself from being institutionalized by Shawshank. From Andy's argument, hope will protect from the outside forces of the prison. This is further reinforced by the religious overtones of the warden, who states that "salvation lies within." While the warden was referring to salvation lying within the Bible, it is obvious that for Andy, salvation from the prison lay in the hope he has inside him. It is when that hope is lost that a man becomes institutionalized. Brooke is an example of this and we start to see Red initially going down the same path before he decides to keep his word to Andy.

While it repeatedly appears in the film, understanding what hope is is crucial to what is at stake in the film. It is implied that hope is the inward belief of one day being free and being out of the hell within the walls of Shawshank. Andy has this hope, and we start to see it appearing within the other characters as well, when prompted by Andy. Even the guards stop and are taken aback by the Mozart playing over the PA system. As the camera gives us a sweeping high-crane shot of the prison yard, we see inmates and guards alike frozen, staring up at the speakers. At that moment, the institution is stopped and it would seem all who are listening to the music are getting in touch with the intangible substance of their humanity. This intangible substance is what Andy later defines as hope.

Hope is also seen in Red as he get truly excited when he breaks parole and leaves for Mexico. It is the excitement that makes Red feel human and free for the first time. He identifies this as what only a free man can feel. However, much like Hegel argues in the master / slave dialectic, there needs to be Angst or fear for the slave to realize himself and truly be free. Once Red is out of Shawshank, will he have that hope ever again? Can a freeman really feel that hope and excitement, or is Red's statement paradoxical?

[kwallace]

“The Shawshank Redemption”, directed by Frank Darabont, wholly believes in the power of hope. From its inception and titles, the “redemption” implies that something will be there to guide the main character (in this case Andy) throughout a film of destitution and impediment upon his humanity. The prison is a border created by societal standards that attempts to break down one’s human identity (where hope lies) and rebuild them as a reformed (man of the institution) citizen. I think that the hope Andy refers to lies more in the necessity to keep their hopes alive for individuality and personal identity than for an attempt to get out from the prison. Many of the men inside the walls of Shawshank know they will never be able to get out, so they hope to create their identity within the confines of the institution. Andy’s desire is to keep his identity as one that is both inside and outside the walls of the prison, it is an identity that does not become dependent on the walls of the prison (likes Brooks unfortunately did). Inside the prison, Brooks was somebody, and out he had nothing. Andy’s inspiration lies in the notion that he will be his own person without the borders of the cell to identify himself with. Hope…. The hope that there is justice in a world where often times it seems there won’t be. Red develops this hope that Andy personifies the more he spends time with Mr. Dufresnes. There are times when Red is terrified that he will have the same reliance on the safety of those bars inside the hell, oops I meant cell. The more Red is able to come to terms with Andy’s notion of hope, the better chance he gives himself to be a unique and normal, not reformed, man.

[jkatz]

The prevailing theme of The Shawshank Redemption is hope. Andy clearly embodies this hope in his masterful escape from prison and his journey to Mexico. It was because of this hope that Andy was able to fulfill a dream. I think hope coincides with purpose. Andy’s survival was dependent on his hope of escape thus he rendered himself a purpose in tunneling through the wall

Brooke left prison without a shred of a hope and a big sack of fear. His hopelessness, nothingness, and sheer lack of purpose was ultimately the cause of his death.

Red is released from prison maybe not with hope but certainly with purpose that being to uncover the secret buried under Andy’s rock. Without this I think Red would have been ‘institutionalized’ and have a fate paralleling Brooke. But, doing this deed gave him the will to keep on. Everyone needs to feel useful or else the satisfaction and hope dies. Red is faced with a new purpose, to find Andy in his Mexican dream. So in response to the question ‘can a free man really feel that hope and excitement?’ my answer is yes, with purpose he can.

[A. Bengel]

I understand Jtan’s confusion about the film’s mixed message of hope in “The Shawshank Redemption.” However, I guess I see the “hope” that Andy encourages in the prison and the “excitement” that Red feels as he is bussing to Mexico as two completely different things. I never saw the comparison between the two. I agree with the film that Red’s excitement is one that only a free man can feel, because when there is no end to imprisonment in sight, it is harder if not impossible not to have a dismal outlook for the future.

On the other hand, the hope that Andy describes and embodies is far more abstract than Red’s excitement. While the hope is simply for some idea of freedom, the excitement is for seeing a specific old friend.

One thing that I find interesting to note in “The Shawshank Redemption” is the pattern of familiarity and alienation that Andy goes through with the establishment. As soon as he grows too familiar with the place, and becomes accepted by the guards and the warden, he blows it, either by blaring music over the speakers, insulting the warden, or furthering his escape. At first I thought the opera incident was Andy’s way of proving to himself and others that he’s not a suck-up. However, after realizing that this scene comes right after Brooks’ suicide, I now realize that Andy did what he did so that he didn’t, like Brooks, become hopelessly entwined with prison life. By keeping himself from ever becoming a true pet of the system, he is able to keep his own hope, his own sense of a life outside of the one he’s currently living.

I agree with many of these threads and posts that hope is the central theme of the film. The story is told through Red’s perspective because he undergoes an important central change. When Andy is first taken to prison, Red has just been rejected for parole. He has established a niche in the prison and is becoming very dependent on the system and cynical about his possibility of ever having any other life. As the film progresses, he finds his hope. Andy gives him the spark to pursue life, which at the end of the film, he finally can journey toward.

[NPhillips-Edwards]

I found the question posed in JTan’s thread regarding Red’s statement at the end of the film a poignant one. After seeing that part, I found myself wondering about the same quandary. I think in Red’s case the statement is not paradoxical, since he has spent the majority of his life behind bars at Shawshank. In effect, once he is freed, he does experience the excitement of a freeman, albeit one who has only recently been freed. The paradox lies, I believe, in the fact that a man who has been free all his life, without ever having experienced a threat to his freedom, cannot possibly appreciate that freedom as well as a man who has lived any length of time without it. I do, then, agree with JTan that the excitement and hope that Red mentions can’t exist without Angst or fear. Red, however, having lived in incarceration for so long, is able experience the excitement of being free, and the hope that he can find Andy. It’s this final hope for reunification that ultimately allows him to be freed from institutionalization and fear, because it gives him a purpose, which is how he and Andy stayed sane on the inside. Brooks’ post incarceration life lacked that kind of purpose, and ipso facto ended tragically. There is hope for Andy and Red, however I think that hope can only really exist without the film’s final scene, since there can be no hope without the acknowledgement of the potential for failure.

[E Black]

Near the end of the second discussion section, we got into the topic of hope as the central theme of the movie, such as how we discussed a lot in lecture. It seemed to be the view that since Red and Andy had already escaped from Shawshank, and made it to their private beach along the Pacific in Mexico, now there was no hope left being that they already achieved their prior hopes. This led many to feel that the movie contradicted its theme of hope by ending without any, a statement I firmly disagree with. I know the idea of something as vague as “hope” can be hard to argue about, but in the context of the movie, it would seem obvious that you can never lose it. Andy says that it’s something that they cannot take away, something that never dies. I understand where one comes from in saying that they have no hopes by the end of the film, since they did reach their goals, but in the mind of Andy, hope never dies. Who’s to say that someone cannot live happily and still hope for more? Why can’t one be truly happy, and then hope that he lives with that happiness until he dies? Isn’t that a fair, logical hope that one can have even after reaching a set goal?

Andy and Red escaped Shawshank while never giving up hope, Red even changes his mind about hope when he is let out on parole when he reads Andy’s letter, and yet, they still have “hopes.” Andy isn’t finished with his project for which he needs help with according to his letter, and when Red walks up to him on the beach, he’s grinding away at his boat, seemingly because he has work left to do, something that can be his hopes for a long lasting life of happiness.

[bcarpenter]

To go along with the theme of hope in the movie, when I first saw the movie Andy didn’t seem to be very passionate about things and so I thought that he was, like the judge said, a cold man with no remorse. However as the movie went along I saw that is was the really the opposite; his cool demeanor was his determination to inspire people with hope. The one thing I didn’t understand after discussion was how could you be happy where you are and still hope for things. At the end of the movie you see Red and Andy alone on a beautiful white beach and think, “that’s the destination,” something like heaven, Eden or paradise, and want nothing else from the movie. It does have a lot of closure but it isn’t very realistic, because happiness like that doesn’t appear on earth.

When Andy was in prison he still improved the situation however. He rebuilt the library, taught Gil how to read, made stone carvings, he helped his friends to get some beer and relax, and many other things. That makes me think that Andy didn’t want to settle, because he doesn’t like his situation at all. On the other hand, he tolerates it and doesn’t seem to be hoping for things he can’t do. So he has his hope, but is also realistic. What I really got from this movie was that you couldn’t do things beyond your control, so you accept them and keep your hope with determination. Or, to be ok with where you are, but look for chances for a better life and take them.

[A. Dickinson]

I found your questioning on the end very insightful. This was my main issue with the ending of the film; it completely distorted the idea of hope in that it took away the excitement and over all meaning to hope because Red reached the of his journey and the audience got to see the outcome. It isn’t that Red’s journey has a paradox in the idea of hope, it’s that the film creates a paradox for the audience by showing the outcome. Every journey has an end and an outcome, but the whole idea of hope is that it’s inconclusive. It seems to me, however, your suggesting that Red needs to earn the right to hope, that he must be put in an absolute shit hole of a situation for him to even feel that sensation. I personally don’t feel that way; hope is something that gets us through the day over small issues and big ones. Red might consider himself a free man but he still has problems like everyone else, you can’t escape that even if you are a free man or a slave. Freedom doesn’t imply happiness, or being content, it simply states you have the potential to do what you please with your own self-being. One can still lose hope in there situation regardless of socio-economic or class status. Regardless of whether Red is free or not, life will still throw bad situations at him and their conclusions will always be uncertain. He’ll need hope, just like any of us would need, to get through those situations. If only the film didn’t show him meeting Andy then maybe this point might have been more prevalent, but our view of this idea is distorted by the fact that Red’s journey is concluded. This breaks the idea that hope has two sides to it; although we might like to think hope will always turn out on our side, we must understand that there is still the chance of it going against us.

[P Baird]

I believe Red’s hope and excitement at the end of the film is perfectly acceptable. The reason that he (and Brooks before him) began to lose hope upon leaving Shawshank is that they no longer had anything to look forward to. While Red no longer had the physical walls of Shawshank around him, he also had no reason to continue his day-to-day life. As an aged felon, Red had no opportunities to achieve anything in normal society and therefore had no reason to look forward to the future. While in prison, Red could always look forward to one day being a free man however once he was out and living in the halfway house, Red starts to realize that being free means nothing without something to look forward to and to strive for.

Andy gives Red the opportunity that he needs to find a reason to continue living his free life. With something to look forward to and a goal to strive for, Red’s life is once again given purpose and even more so than it had in Shawshank where all he could look forward to was perhaps getting paroled. Now with a boat to fix and a business to start Red’s life is affirmed and he can truly being living it.

[PHarrison]

Though the main theme of Frank Darabont’s 1994 classic film The Shawshank Redemption is about hope, it is also a character study that examines a man’s integrity and his unwavering strength of honor and loyalty in a corrupt world. For it is Andy Dufresne’s steadfast adherence to his own moral and ethical principles that give him the strength to remain hopeful, patient and loyal to his friends and to himself. This steadfast devotion to his own sense of duty is brought to our attention with the weekly letters that Andy sends out to get more books for the prison library. For six years he sent letters. That’s 51 weeks a year for 6 years, over 300 letters. And, once he received more books and increased funding, he sent 2 letters a week. Though the movie doesn’t specify how long this continued, the library grows from dark, storage rooms of old desks and chairs, to a clean, book lined room with tables and chairs for inmates to sit, study and possibly earn their high school diploma. This determination illustrates Andy’s patience and resolve. This is also illustrated in the chess pieces that he carves out of soapstone and alabaster. And finally once the method of his escape is revealed.

I also believe that it is this strength of character that helps Andy maintain his own sense of hope. Not necessarily by continually pumping himself up, but by the good deeds that he does for his fellow inmates. First in the way that he negotiates with Hadley to provide beer to his fellow co-workers while tarring a roof, to playing the beautiful opera music so that the entire prison could feel the music that Andy believes helps them imagine flying above the stone walls and remember that there are places in the world not surrounded by walls. Through this sense of honor and integrity, Andy not only give his friends a sense of the hope that they have forgotten, but uses their hope to build on his own.