The Shawshank Redemption: The Truth About Hope

Cinema’s most recent Great Work is a thematic playground, with the center structure in such a wonderous, haunting environment being a novel perspective of a universal feeling.

One need not delve too deeply into The Shawshank Redemption to observe one of its more peculiar mantras. In conversation with a still innocent Andy, inmate Red, a ‘lifer’ of Shawshank Penitentiary, somberly states that “Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.” Nestled between the poignancy and despair conveyed in such a line is the subtle realization that the entirety of Shawshank’s narrative depends upon Red’s pessimistic definition of ‘Hope’.

Hope is as much a belief as it is an elixir. Complacency plagues those within the walls of Shawshank who sport tattered jeans and matching grey button-ups. Hope is vacant from their minds, their hearts, their souls. Shawshank imparts a ‘way of life’ upon inmates that replaces the immoral lives they exercised prior to their incarceration. From this substitution comes dependency; the character Brooks commits suicide when he leaves the prison. Was this act of self-violence committed under his own volition, or was the choice predetermined and out of his hands entirely?

The devilish trick that Shawshank plays upon inmates isn’t that it dissuades them from believing escape is attainable; parole is indeed possible, as is demonstrated by the legal discharging of both Brooks and Red. No, the true evil of Shawshank is its ability to morph Hope into Despair, the talent of making one think that darkness is more of an ally than light. To the prison, and its staff, darkness is cozy whereas light is demanding.

The psychological and moral leash that Shawshank ties around its inmates, both former and current, stems from the fallacious mantra that darkness is more of a home than light.

When thinking about this film, one that I consider to be the most recent epic that cinema has bestowed, Shawshank is often dissected on three levels: 1) the story of an innocent man earning the freedom he ‘deserves’, 2) a pointed criticism of an abusive ‘reformation’ system, and 3) an illustration of the corruption that plagues public institutions. Yet, what’s noticeably systemic here is the material’s analysis of hope’s status in desperate situations; this is the connective tissue binding this picaresque motion picture, a sprawling image of human strength and weakness quarreling over each other’s shortcomings.

Let us return to the previously posed query. Brooks is introduced as an elder of the prison; Shawshank has been his home for an unspecified, though undoubtedly large, number of years. The sudden move to relocate Brooks, a granting of parole that surprisingly isn’t desired by the old man, forces the elder into the outside world, a domain he hasn’t inhabited for decades. This frail body is thrust into a society that doesn’t recognize him, nor does he recognize it. He has no connections, no comprehension of the evolved decorum of modernity, no basis for outlining a path to thrive, much less survive.

So, was Brooks’s decision to kill himself entirely his choice? In searching for an answer, one is determining who or what placed the idea in Brooks’s head that he’d be better off dead in a world he doesn’t care to be a part of. Yet, it’s this point that must be investigated, as it subsequently posits a separate question worth unraveling: what made Brooks believe that he couldn’t exist in this outside world, one in which cars amaze him as much as they do frighten him?

The prison is obviously to blame, but does one’s accusatory eye point to the staff, the walls, or the very system of incarceration itself? This is where the true evil underlying the grounds of Shawshank becomes exposed. Warden Norton is corrupt and vile, as is his lap dog Captain Hadley, but these men aren’t the architects of Shawshank… like the inmates, they are products of the prison.

Within the darker beats of Shawshank exist some truly beautiful moments, most of which are illustrated by a bevy of friendships that, unfortunately, rarely exist through the close of the story.

Often, when something is spawned from darkness, it lacks the capability nor the desire to devise a solution towards curing both itself and others of said darkness. Enter Andy Dufresne, whom I prefer to call The Healer, an enchanting harbinger of light. Andy’s obvious innocence for the crimes he has been convicted of distinguishes him immediately; sure, the inmates like to joke that “everyone [at Shawshank] is innocent”, though audiences are led to believe that the truth of this statement is only applicable to Andy.

Initial innocence is a black mark on Andy, a signal to the wretches and devious that this bright soul is vulnerable to dark, sinister intentions. Andy conquers these forces through courage and camaraderie, resulting in a weathered, albeit determined body that seeks to weaponize its superfluous light for altruistic purposes. Andy spearheads a reclamation project of the prison library, expanding upon its cultural reservoir, thus providing inmates with a sense of identity that, originally, was concealed from them.

What’s perhaps most curious here is the fact that staff, most especially the warden, don’t prevent the expansion of Andy’s light. Sure, Warden Norton barters with the library’s survivability to ensure Andy’s loyalty, but such negotiations treat empty threats like commodities. Perhaps a reason for this is because of Andy’s indispensability: his sharp accountant’s mind provides plentiful (illegal) services to Norton, as well as more legal though nevertheless intricate duties to the greater staff of guards.

But this mechanical summation of darkness’s response to light’s expansion is too simple; darkness would not allow light to fester and grow, and would much rather conquer such light with malice. Tommy’s murder symbolizes this ever-going struggle with absolute precision; a pair of rifle shots do the trick, and Andy’s brightest product is subsumed by a deathly fear of upending the status quo. With that, the comfort of darkness wins out once more, its victories plenty, though its eternal legacy further stained.

Cinematically speaking, Andy’s escape from the prison is pure glory. In thinking about such an act in a deeper sense, it is the survival of Andy’s soul, even more so than his body, that makes such a moment so endearing.

When Andy recognizes this, he understands that no disbursement of his light is capable of conquering the entrenched impenetrability of Shawshank. No number of books or musical records can alter the shadowy walls and chilling bars that house the inmates; inherent qualities almost never can be cured by a single prescription. Andy is outmatched, his light threatened, a realization setting in that to maintain the brighter side of his soul, he must escape Shawshank’s suffocating grip…

…And he does in truly cinematic fashion. Andy’s voluntary leave is vile yet well-earned. This piece of the narrative is straightforward, though it’s what follows such a miracle that truly stands out. Realizing that one person’s light is incapable of thwarting an emblematic institution of darkness, Andy’s altruism nevertheless persists, leading to a trail of breadcrumbs laid out for Red who, upon the granting of his parole, is frighteningly set up to face Brooks’s fate.

Andy does not allow this. The trail of breadcrumbs so meticulously placed by the accountant’s hand leads Red straight into the arms of his brother, a familial bond derived from hope, one born within the cold, alien stones of incarceration.

There is much truth to the consequences that stem from hope, and Shawshank precisely pinpoints these dangers. Yet, hope is truthfully much more than a religion or remedy: it is a being, one influenced by its environment as much as you or I. Its mood shifts in the winds of discord, though while enduring such chaos, beauty persists at its core. Hope is no solution, but it is an ally, a creature of light, one that may not always be capable of conquering the darkness that contrasts it, but that’s because conquest isn’t in hope’s nature. For, much like Andy, hope is a healer.

That is what this story teaches me.