The Shawshank

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorHigh School, 12th grade February 2008

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In Frank Darabont's film, "The Shawshank Redemption" one of the many themes presented is the effect of hope in bleak circumstances. This film presents us with two viewpoints on this subject, one of Red Reddings and the other of Andy Dufresne. Unlike Red and the other prisoners at Shawshank, Andy tries to maintain ties to his life outside the prison, he hopes he would one day live as a free man again. While Red lost and fears hope. However, in the end, both characters end up benefiting from the effects of hope Andy Dufresne, a man wrongly convicted of murder viewed hope as ¡§a good thing, maybe the best of things, and a good thing never dies¡¨. Andy faces challenges in keeping the one thing that he holds dear, hope. The hope that one day he would live as free man. Andy keeps himself busy by transforming the prison into a more comfortable environment but he is never completely assimilated into prison life.

The inner strength that lay within him helped him overcome great obstacles in prison, keeping him alive. Regardless of his punishments he never forgot who he was or his personal goal. The result of his determination was that he was able to take daring risks to escape from Shawshank. He managed to tunnel from his own cell with a little hammer through fifty feet of solid concrete and able to withstand the sewage waste, crawling 250 yards to freedom. Hope had given him strength to pursue a goal that many who had thought could not had been accomplished Red Reddings entered prison as a youth and spent decades living there. He went through multiple parole board hearings and each of them were denied, so to Red ¡§hope is a dangerous thing¡¨ he...