Shawshank Redemption movie review - Essay Example

In this movie, there is not just a story line, but it has a deeper meaning to the scenario. There is a saving appeal in the title ‘the Shawshank Redemption’. According to the Webster’s Dictionary, redeem means to free from what distresses or harm (Analysis of the Shawshank Redemtion). There is an initial sense of salvation as to what Shawshank might be. However, later in the movie this sense is discovered. According to that sense, the title is an oxymoron. How can it be possible that a prison provides redemption?

However, full meaning of the title is gained by the end of the movie. Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is a successful banker and the leading character of Shawshank. He is a man who is convicted for murdering her wife and her lover. Due to this murder, he shipped to a maximum-security prison in Shawshank, Maine, for two consecutive life sentences. Shawshank is a depressing and harsh prison, where brutality from the prisoners and the guards is a common place. Andy becomes friends of a guy who had a fair taste of the prison after spending many years behind the bars.

This was Ellis Boyd ‘Red’ Redding (Morgan Freeman). Red is aware of all the ways of smuggling items in the prison for other prisoners. After other prisoners brutalize Andy, Red realizes that he is an unusual person (Brundage). Morgan, as the new recruit who is most likely to crack under the pressure picked up Andy. Soon enough, Andy realized the harsh realities of the prison. The warden was a corrupt, Captain Byron Hadley (Clancy Brown), who led sadistic guards. The inmates were lesser wild than the animals, who would insure their dominance through rape or beatings.

Andy had proclaimed his innocence in the beginning of the movie. Throughout the time he was in prison, he does not crack, but he has the hope of his innocence. Apart from being innocent, Andy was smart too. He was always doing something or the other. He helped one of the notorious guards with a tax problem in return for which he got chilled bottles of beer for his people who worked in the party. This is how he got the guards and other prisoners on his side (The Shawshank Redemption ). Andy improved the prisons library for those who wanted to study.

In a matter of few years, Andy gained the respect of the guards and other prisoner in a matter of few years. Andy was an optimist who would never lose hope. He would also give hope to the other prisoners. He accepts that fact that life has many possibilities, but to fulfill them all, he needs to be free. This movie is the best example of art and music. It is about a man who does not give up on hope, the only thing that cannot be taken away from the external forces. Andy and Shawshank are two things the viewer completely is enveloped with.

The first glimpse of the prison you get a fair glimpse of how grim the life can be- because of its utterly gothic structure that assaults you with a sense of foreboding. A prison life is composed of routine and debasement. It is Andy’s smartness, which allows him to prevail behind the bars. He wins over the guards and the wardens through his skills of banking. He keeps and eye on most of the staff of the prison (The Shawshank Redemption (1994)). Andy is raising funds for his undertaking. He is very patient about it and is steadily writing weekly letters to the state officials until he gets what he is expecting.

Slowly and carefully, ‘the Shawshank Conspiracy’