“That there are things in this world not carved out of gray stone. That there’s a small place inside of us they can never lock away, and that place is called hope.”This is a classic quote from the film, American director Frank Darabont’s classic The Shawshank Redemption, a wonderful, engaging, meaningful, vivid and colourful story full of art and atmosphere. This film is not only a critique of the American justice and prison system, but also a story of precious human friendship.
Act 1: The Exposition
In 1947, banker Andy Dufresne was accused of shooting his wife and her lover, and Andy was sentenced to life imprisonment, meaning he would spend the rest of his life in Shawshank Prison, imprisoned for the rest of his life on charges of killing his wife and her lover.
Act 2: Rising Action
His first appearance in Shawshank Prison makes the prison’s “big brother” Redding look at him in a different light, as Ellis “Red” Redding is sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in 1927 and is unsuccessful paroled several times. He became the “authority figure” at Shawshank and had the means to get almost anything you wanted as long as you could pay for it: cigarettes, sweets, alcohol, even marijuana. Whenever a new prisoner arrived, bets were placed on who would cry on the first night. Reed thinks the weak, bookish Andy will cry, and Andy’s silence ends up costing Reed two packs of cigarettes, but it also impresses him with Andy. Reed helps him get a rock hammer and a poster of a starlet, and the two become friends. Andy soon becomes a prison librarian and uses his financial knowledge to help the prison officers avoid taxes, which attracts the attention of the warden and he is recruited to help him launder money.
Act 3: The Climax
By chance, he learns that a newly imprisoned thief can testify to clear him of the murder. With a glimmer of hope, Andy approached the warden in the hope that he could get his case overturned, as the prisoner had heard about Andy’s case when he was serving time in another prison and he knew who the real killer was. But when Andy asks the warden to reopen the case, he is refused and receives a severe punishment of two months’ solitary confinement.
Act 4: Falling Action
And in order to prevent Andy’s release, the prison warden engineers the young prisoner’s death. The insidious and hypocritical warden pretends to promise Andy, but behind his back he sends someone to kill the thief, killing his only hope of getting out of prison legally. Faced with the harsh reality, Andy becomes depressed. One day he says to Red, “If you ever get paroled, you have to go somewhere and fulfil a wish for me. That’s where I had my first date with my wife, and dig up a box under a big oak tree there. You’ll know what it is then.”
Act 5: Denouement of Resolution
Disillusioned with Shawshank Prison and its administrators, Andy decides he wants to escape the place. It turns out that Andy had bought a small hammer from his best friend Reed since he was first incarcerated. For twenty years, he used this hammer to dig tunnels in the walls of his room, digging a little each day and then taking the dirt out in the folds of his trouser legs while everyone went to the square en masse in the morning. In this way, he spent twenty years digging a passage to freedom. On the night of his escape, he dropped all the important information when he helped the warden with the paperwork for the tax evasion; and replaced for himself the leather shoes that the warden had asked him to take and polish. On a quiet night when no one was aware of it, he disappeared. By the time the guards found the hole he had used to escape, he had taken on a new identity on the outside and withdrawn all the warden’s tax evasion money for himself, thus making him a millionaire. On top of this, he brought the crimes committed by the Shawshank prison administrators to light to the outside world, bringing down the dark organisation. A plan to break out of prison that had been hidden for decades allowed him to redeem himself and regain his freedom! With his inspiration and help, his old friend Reed also runs bravely to freedom.
“The Shawshank Redemption is like a hopeful flame that can rekindle hearts and save a dead silence. It is a bright light that always gives a little surprise in the darkness, illuminating unknown areas and thus regaining life and salvation. This metaphor could be what happened in Shawshank prison, silently playing out a story of finding a bright light of hope.”