Stephan King’s Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption is told from the view of a prisoner named Red. In this novella King instills horror into the reader’s mind, not by blood and guts, but by putting the reader in a place of no control. Andrew Dufresne, a banker, is wrongly accused of murdering his wife and her lover by shooting them 4 times each. This lands him in Shawshank where he becomes a vital tool to the warden and all the guards there. He continues to help them with their taxes, while secretly working on an escape plan. He finally makes his escape successfully a quarter of a century after arriving at Shawshank. Andy, after going under the pseudo name of Peter Stevens starts a small business in Zihuatanejo, Mexico; where he hopes Red will accompany him when he gets out. Quickly after arriving at Shawshank Andy befriends Red, who has a knack at getting things. Andy inquires Red to get him two important things for him, a rock hammer and a Rita Hayworth poster (a big one, not small). These two things become crucial in his escape out of Shawshank. Behind the poster Andy starts to dig, and this excavation takes longer than anyone could have thought. No one knew of Andy’s plan to escape. He was untraceable. No one knew of the pseudo name either, except for Red. When Red got out in May of 1977, he remembered the story Andy had told him and where the key was placed, “and the key that unlocks the box and the money and the new life is under a hunk of black glass in a Buxton hayfield.”(78) Red went looking for it. He searched a few hayfields till the day he came upon the field with the black glass rock. When he lifted it up there was a note waiting for him. And so began Red’s journey to meet his long lost friend “Peter Stevens”.
In The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King he talks about when Red is put into Shawshanks prison for killing his wife and two others he finds peace within the prison. He likes being in there because everyone gets along with him and has no enemies. After years of being in there Andy breaks out of prison and goes to Mexico with his fake identity. Red forgets what it is like to be free. Years later he is let go into the world with parole. He misses being back in prison and wants to go back. He thinks of the Red and the rock he spoke about. He then goes to find the rock and sees a letter to Red, $1,000 cash, and I ticket to Mexico to stay with him. He takes the risk and goes to Mexico and becomes a fugitive once again. Red is a guy that can be good or a bad guy for many reasons. Most of the time he is a bad guy because of how he has killed three people. He then goes to jail for a while but gets let back out into the world to get money and go to Mexico with one of his jail buddies Andy. When he does go Mexico he violates the law once again and puts people endanger. It is not fair that he gets to do this when the people he killed, their families are in pain and trying to survive in the world. Nut then there is a little good in him while he is in prison. Red helps out his fellow inmates get what they want in exchange for money. He helps them out in a way. All in all Red is not a good guy because he gets out of jail, get $1,000, and a ticket to go to Mexico It is not fair for others in the world that ant what he got
Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is told from a correctional facility known as Shawshank, and is about the struggle the main characters Red and Andy face while desiring a life in the real world, but also becoming consumed and comfortable with the dark side of humanity. Red and Andy are both normal people living in the real world, but quickly have normal life taken from them when they end up in Shawshank prison. Red is accustomed to prison life, having already been there for several years. When Andy first arrives, he is not bothered by life at Shawshank, but slowly descends into a dark state of mind. He is constantly abused by a rough group called the sisters and takes physical and mental punishment from them on almost a daily basis. Just when Andy begins to move away from despair, darkness soon finds him again when the warden crushes Andy’s dream of having a retrial to prove his innocence. Red describes that, “Andy Dufresne had changed. He had grown harder” (71). Andy ultimately falls to the brutality of his darkest emotions. The dark setting of the prison along with harsh treatment brings Andy to a side of life far different from what he experienced in the real world. For the first time, he is witnessing the darker side of humanity. The prison is a symbol for the very essence of dark behavior. Not just dark behavior, but dark emotions that are hidden deep in the human mind. At one point Andy loses touch with reality and only wishes to be free from the evils that confine him. Stephen King does a great job in connecting the character’s emotions with the setting. When Red is released from prison, he is awe struck to finally see what the real world is like, after being locked in an unworldly place for so long. The prison is almost like the doorway to the dark side of human life. King allows the reader to see inside the minds of the characters as they fight to close that doorway for good.
Stephen King's novella, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”, allows the reader to explore a different world, one in which many fortunate people don’t get to experience. King’s novella takes place in a prison referred to mostly as Shawshank. This prison by no means is the typical bread and water stay-in-your-cell type of prison, Shawshank contains the state’s most hardened criminals, mainly murderers and rapists. Shawshank, however, is no walk in the park; there are no TV’s or a lot of space for prisoners to mingle unlike the type on prisons celebrities such as Martha Stewart and Paris Hilton are sent to. Instead prisoners are put to work at the license plate factor, laundering, and repair vehicles all within the confines of the prison. King is realistic in his portrayal of the characters the convicts not all bad and the guards at the prison not all good. Prison life is brutal; this is definitely evident in Shawshank where sexual aggression is at its peak. Although King does not make this place the “hell of all hells”, for the prisoners do get to feel like people on occasion such as monthly movie viewings, getting visits from relatives and friends, or bargaining with the go to go Red to get a luxury such as a radio or a book. As expected the prison has a lot of dirty secrets that every warden Shawshank has ever had tries to keep under wraps such as guard Byron Hadley’s brutal murder of a portly prisoner and money earned “under the table”. Overall King provides the reader with the realities of prison life though no doubt embellished, but who can really even say for sure unless one’s actually been in prison themselves.
The book, "Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption", written by Stephen King, is the story of two men's time in the Shawshank jail which is located in Maine. The two main characters of the story are Red and Andy, both of whom are in jail for murder. Red honestly admits to his crime and wishes he could take it back. Andy claims to be innocent and Red truly believes he is unlike all the other inmates who claim to be. Red and Andy get to know each other very well over the years and become friends. Red tells the story of Andy's adventure in jail and how he was eventually able to escape from the horrid walls of the prison and achieve freedom. When Red is finally released he gets a note from Andy and then goes to Mexico to meet up with him.
The Shawshank prison is a house of horror. It has multiple solitary confinement rooms that can drive an inmate insane and several locations where guards avoid going to which leads to violence and sexual brutality. “A lot has gone on in that long narrow space over the years; the guards know about it and just let it be” (33). Prisoners are in constant fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time or doing something to upset the warden and being placed in confinement. The most horrific part of the Shawshank prison isn't what happens in the jail but rather that it prevents the prisons freedom. Waking up everyday in a small, dark cell and not being able to control your life is torturous and the Shawshank prison is the location of that day to day hell which confines its prisoners.
Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, is a story of two men. One man completely admits to the murder of his wife. The other is a man falsely accused of murder. They both end up in the same prison, Shawshank. King is a master of the literary horror element. In Shawshank the reader has to search a little deeper to find the true horror of this story. The horror is the fact that humans can and also can not control their future. Andy is falsely accused of murdering his wife and her “lover.” Andy had never done anything wrong and now he has to serve a “long time” sentence in a grotesque correctional facility. The horror about this is that it could happen to anyone. Any person could get set up for a crime they did not commit especially in the age of computers and hackers. Andy ends up having a hard time in prison and having a dreadful experience, the only thing that saves him is his knowledge as a banker. This knowledge earns him an important role in the running of Shawshank. King is very effective in his usage of this true life horror. Any person can relate to the horror of Shawshank because it could happen to any of us. It is like the fear of being buried alive, just the fact that it could happen and you as a person are defenseless to it. All it takes is being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This relation can really connect the reader to the story and have them be truly taken by the horror laid out by the author.
In the novel “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” by Stephen King is written to entertain us. Red is the narrator of the story and Andy Dufresne is the main character of the novel. Andy escapes the Shawshank prison by carving a hole into the roof of his cell with a rock-hammer, without out anyone knowing what he was doing. He hid the hole he carved behind a Rita Hayworth poster which was the sex model of that time. It took him twenty-seven years to escape the Shawshank prison. Ironically he escaped during the night without anyone hearing him, through the pipes of the sewer lines. Nobody would have known how he got out if it was not for Samuel Norton ripping the poster off the ceiling, out of anger because he could not figure out how Andy escaped. Andy escaped to Buxton to get his key for the bank security safe, hidden under a rock on a rock wall, to go to the bank to get his fake ID and money to start his new life in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. After Red got out of the prison on parole Red went to Buxton to the wall where the rock was, to see what Andy was talking about and found a note there from Andy to tell him to meet him in Mexico.
The plot of the novel was to escape the Shawshank prison. It is ironic how long it takes Andy to escape the prison. It would be more realistic if Andy took less time to do it and throw some more complications into his plan, or it might not have been his plan at first. Andy could have been goofing off with his rock-hammer and accidentally hit the roof with it and then found out how week the concrete was so he kept chiseling at the roof. Telling us how he was a banker before he went to prison tells us that Andy was smart and thought things through before he acts. Which is a sign that it could have been his plan to escape the prison.
The story, "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" by Stephen King, is about the escape of an inmate, Andy Dufresne, from Shawshank State Prison but the story is told form the perspective of another inmate, Red. The story is considered a horror but King does not follow the norm of hack-and-slash and gore but rather the use of lost of freedom. These people go from being free to having their entire life dictated to them. Red is serving three life sentences for the murders of his wife, their neighbor and their neighbor's child. In prison Red is the man who can get just about anything into prison for another inmate. Andy, who befriends Red shortly after going to prison, is what the guards and the warden call an ideal prisoner; he hardly gets into fights or stirs up trouble and he does all the guards' and warden's taxes and gives them advice on how to find loopholes to get out of paying taxes (Andy was a banker before he was put in prison so he new all about this). Andy was sentence to two life terms in prison for the murder of his wife and her lover but Andy was falsely accused and did not do it. Which leaves Andy to his very successful escape plan. The first point of view makes the suspense build. By having Red, who is not the main character, tell the story the reader does not know what exactly happens through the story. Red admits that he did not see everything that happened. Some parts he heard from other inmates which he said that inmates tend to stretch the truth but it is still has the bases of the story is still there. Later Red says "That's what I know; now I'm going to tell you what I think. I may have it wrong on some of the specifics, but I'd be willing to bet my watch and chain that I've got the general outline down pretty well"(91). Red does not know for sure what happened so the reader does not know either but they are to trust the word of a convicted murder. The only thing that is certain is that Andy escaped, found the rock and is in Mexico. That is it the rest is speculated by Red. The point of view also does not allow the reader to see where the story is going. The reader experiences it the say way Red did and that was out of the blue that Andy escaped. King limits the readers knowledge of the story by only allowing them to see the events through the eyes of one inmate.
Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is told from within the confines of Shawshank prison in Maine and depicts the time spent there by two convicted murderer’s, Red and Andy Dufresne. Throughout their stay at Shawshank State Penitentiary, they experience the dampers of prison life. Andy becomes the subject of “The Sisters” cruel and unusual punishments, placing him in the infirmary on numerous occasions. After helping prison guard Hadley with a legal loophole to avoid taxes, Defresne emerges as the bearer of financial advice for all of the prison workers. While at Shawshank, Red becomes the go-to guy, gaining almost any kind of contraband, for a price of course. He obtained a rock hammer, rock blankets, and a Rita Hayworth poster for his dear friend Andy, all which lead to Andy’s escape from Shawshank. King drives the reader of this story into the unknown by exploring the ultimate fear of how much control one really has over his or her own life.
King’s placement of Red and Andy into such brutality explains Andy’s turn into darkness. If Andy had not experienced the hardships placed on him by “The Sisters” and the burdens of life at Shawshank, the reader would not see his change in behavior. Andy loses his humanity, along with his innocence during his stay at the penitentiary. He tries to get released on hard evidence, but after being refused by the warden, Andy realizes that he has become too important to the people at the Shank. The reality hits him that he has no control over his future anymore, a fear King projects onto the reader through the setting.
In Stephen King’s, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, we are told the story of a prisoners’ experience that enables readers to connect their fears of not being able to control their live with those of the prisoners at Shawshank. The story is of Andy Defruense, told through the eyes of a fellow inmate, Red, “the only guilty man in Shawshank”. Red had already been in Shawshank for ten years when Andy arrived, making him the “all-knowing” character. For the first few years Red only watches Andy, interacting with him only a few times. But, as Andy begins to trust Red, after receiving multiple valuable item from him, they become friends. After an incident while tarring a roof, Andy becomes the financial adviser for the guards and warden. When the warden begins a business using the inmates as workers years later, it is Andy who is trusted to work on the financials, finding ways to hide all of the “dirty money”. When Tommy, a fellow inmate and friend of Andy, tells Andy he was cellmates with the man who committed the crime Andy was in for, Andy went straight to the warden. It is when the warden denies to help Andy it is the first time Red sees Andy as broken. Andy is helpless, and unable to control his future. At the end, the everyone in Shawshank is surprised to see that Andy was able to escape through a whole he has been digging for sixteen years. Once Red is released, he accompanies his friend Andy, who is now know as Peter, in Mexico to help run a hotel by the Pacific ocean, a place with no memory. To help the readers feel the fear of the prisoners Stephen King created two opposite characters in which everyone can relate to. Red, the guilty, all knowing prisoner who has been broken by the fact of having no choice, and Andy, a innocent man who seems oblivious to the fact he is in prison and always keeps his hope. The two extremes of prisoner types lets each reader determine their situation and how they can relate. Each character is put in the situation of having no control; Red, through his many parole hearings, and Andy through his search for Blatch, the man who killed his wife. Through the wide spectrum of characteristic King gives the two prisoners, his effectiveness is evident through the horror a reader feels when the character they are connecting with is helpless.
Critical Analysis Stephan King’s “Shawshank Redemption” is a short story told from Red’s point of view on what he knows and what it is he thinks went on within the Shawshank Prison walls. This short story is about the inner workings of a highly secured state prison, and the hardships a life in jail can cause a person over the years of their sentence. In the Shawshank Redemption you see the truth about the relationships formed between the guards and the prisoners. You learn about; the deals made, the special privileges given to certain men, the cruel and hateful punishments directed at certain people or groups, and the secrets the guards tend to keep from the warden and the other guards in order to gain a little more money for themselves. Red’s way of telling the story through dialogue is to not give out too much information at once. He tells the story in order, but tends to leave out certain details so that he can tell them at a later time where it will make more sense and have a greater effect. By leaving out certain pieces of information, it causes the reader to want to keep reading more so that they can find out these “untold details”.
Stephen King's Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is told from the point of view of one of the characters, Red. Red like all of the characters in the story is a prison. Shawshank is a state penitentary in Maine. Soon after ending up in Shawshank Red becomes the go to guy. He can get just about anything you would want into prison, except things like guns and hard drugs that could put him in a lot of trouble. Red gets three things for the new guy at the prison. A guy named Andy Dufrense. Andy is a jittery thing when he enters the prison and he wants to do is be alone. The three things Red gets for Andy are a rock hammer, some rock blankets, and picture of a woman from the outside, Rita Hayworth. These three things help Andy escape from his life sentence for two murders that he did not commit. King uses the fact that Andy and Red are so different to appeal to any and everyone who reads this story. Andy and Red are complete opposite. For one reason Red is guilty and Andy is innocent. The fact that Andy is innocent is another Horror faced in the book. Andy was sentenced to life in prison while Blatch, the man who did kill Andy's wife, runs free outside the walls of Shawshank able to live his life how he pleases. AJ Gilpin
Stephan King’s Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption is told from the view of a prisoner named Red. In this novella King instills horror into the reader’s mind, not by blood and guts, but by putting the reader in a place of no control. Andrew Dufresne, a banker, is wrongly accused of murdering his wife and her lover by shooting them 4 times each. This lands him in Shawshank where he becomes a vital tool to the warden and all the guards there. He continues to help them with their taxes, while secretly working on an escape plan. He finally makes his escape successfully a quarter of a century after arriving at Shawshank. Andy, after going under the pseudo name of Peter Stevens starts a small business in Zihuatanejo, Mexico; where he hopes Red will accompany him when he gets out.
ReplyDeleteQuickly after arriving at Shawshank Andy befriends Red, who has a knack at getting things. Andy inquires Red to get him two important things for him, a rock hammer and a Rita Hayworth poster (a big one, not small). These two things become crucial in his escape out of Shawshank. Behind the poster Andy starts to dig, and this excavation takes longer than anyone could have thought. No one knew of Andy’s plan to escape. He was untraceable. No one knew of the pseudo name either, except for Red. When Red got out in May of 1977, he remembered the story Andy had told him and where the key was placed, “and the key that unlocks the box and the money and the new life is under a hunk of black glass in a Buxton hayfield.”(78) Red went looking for it. He searched a few hayfields till the day he came upon the field with the black glass rock. When he lifted it up there was a note waiting for him. And so began Red’s journey to meet his long lost friend “Peter Stevens”.
Chelsae Nelson
In The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King he talks about when Red is put into Shawshanks prison for killing his wife and two others he finds peace within the prison. He likes being in there because everyone gets along with him and has no enemies. After years of being in there Andy breaks out of prison and goes to Mexico with his fake identity. Red forgets what it is like to be free. Years later he is let go into the world with parole. He misses being back in prison and wants to go back. He thinks of the Red and the rock he spoke about. He then goes to find the rock and sees a letter to Red, $1,000 cash, and I ticket to Mexico to stay with him. He takes the risk and goes to Mexico and becomes a fugitive once again.
ReplyDeleteRed is a guy that can be good or a bad guy for many reasons. Most of the time he is a bad guy because of how he has killed three people. He then goes to jail for a while but gets let back out into the world to get money and go to Mexico with one of his jail buddies Andy. When he does go Mexico he violates the law once again and puts people endanger. It is not fair that he gets to do this when the people he killed, their families are in pain and trying to survive in the world. Nut then there is a little good in him while he is in prison. Red helps out his fellow inmates get what they want in exchange for money. He helps them out in a way. All in all Red is not a good guy because he gets out of jail, get $1,000, and a ticket to go to Mexico It is not fair for others in the world that ant what he got
Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is told from a correctional facility known as Shawshank, and is about the struggle the main characters Red and Andy face while desiring a life in the real world, but also becoming consumed and comfortable with the dark side of humanity. Red and Andy are both normal people living in the real world, but quickly have normal life taken from them when they end up in Shawshank prison. Red is accustomed to prison life, having already been there for several years. When Andy first arrives, he is not bothered by life at Shawshank, but slowly descends into a dark state of mind. He is constantly abused by a rough group called the sisters and takes physical and mental punishment from them on almost a daily basis. Just when Andy begins to move away from despair, darkness soon finds him again when the warden crushes Andy’s dream of having a retrial to prove his innocence. Red describes that, “Andy Dufresne had changed. He had grown harder” (71). Andy ultimately falls to the brutality of his darkest emotions.
ReplyDeleteThe dark setting of the prison along with harsh treatment brings Andy to a side of life far different from what he experienced in the real world. For the first time, he is witnessing the darker side of humanity. The prison is a symbol for the very essence of dark behavior. Not just dark behavior, but dark emotions that are hidden deep in the human mind. At one point Andy loses touch with reality and only wishes to be free from the evils that confine him. Stephen King does a great job in connecting the character’s emotions with the setting. When Red is released from prison, he is awe struck to finally see what the real world is like, after being locked in an unworldly place for so long. The prison is almost like the doorway to the dark side of human life. King allows the reader to see inside the minds of the characters as they fight to close that doorway for good.
Kyle Robinson
Stephen King's novella, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”, allows the reader to explore a different world, one in which many fortunate people don’t get to experience. King’s novella takes place in a prison referred to mostly as Shawshank. This prison by no means is the typical bread and water stay-in-your-cell type of prison, Shawshank contains the state’s most hardened criminals, mainly murderers and rapists. Shawshank, however, is no walk in the park; there are no TV’s or a lot of space for prisoners to mingle unlike the type on prisons celebrities such as Martha Stewart and Paris Hilton are sent to. Instead prisoners are put to work at the license plate factor, laundering, and repair vehicles all within the confines of the prison. King is realistic in his portrayal of the characters the convicts not all bad and the guards at the prison not all good.
ReplyDeletePrison life is brutal; this is definitely evident in Shawshank where sexual aggression is at its peak. Although King does not make this place the “hell of all hells”, for the prisoners do get to feel like people on occasion such as monthly movie viewings, getting visits from relatives and friends, or bargaining with the go to go Red to get a luxury such as a radio or a book. As expected the prison has a lot of dirty secrets that every warden Shawshank has ever had tries to keep under wraps such as guard Byron Hadley’s brutal murder of a portly prisoner and money earned “under the table”. Overall King provides the reader with the realities of prison life though no doubt embellished, but who can really even say for sure unless one’s actually been in prison themselves.
Caitlin Costello
The book, "Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption", written by Stephen King, is the story of two men's time in the Shawshank jail which is located in Maine. The two main characters of the story are Red and Andy, both of whom are in jail for murder. Red honestly admits to his crime and wishes he could take it back. Andy claims to be innocent and Red truly believes he is unlike all the other inmates who claim to be. Red and Andy get to know each other very well over the years and become friends. Red tells the story of Andy's adventure in jail and how he was eventually able to escape from the horrid walls of the prison and achieve freedom. When Red is finally released he gets a note from Andy and then goes to Mexico to meet up with him.
ReplyDeleteThe Shawshank prison is a house of horror. It has multiple solitary confinement rooms that can drive an inmate insane and several locations where guards avoid going to which leads to violence and sexual brutality. “A lot has gone on in that long narrow space over the years; the guards know about it and just let it be” (33). Prisoners are in constant fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time or doing something to upset the warden and being placed in confinement. The most horrific part of the Shawshank prison isn't what happens in the jail but rather that it prevents the prisons freedom. Waking up everyday in a small, dark cell and not being able to control your life is torturous and the Shawshank prison is the location of that day to day hell which confines its prisoners.
Alex Beurket
Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, is a story of two men. One man completely admits to the murder of his wife. The other is a man falsely accused of murder. They both end up in the same prison, Shawshank. King is a master of the literary horror element. In Shawshank the reader has to search a little deeper to find the true horror of this story. The horror is the fact that humans can and also can not control their future.
ReplyDeleteAndy is falsely accused of murdering his wife and her “lover.” Andy had never done anything wrong and now he has to serve a “long time” sentence in a grotesque correctional facility. The horror about this is that it could happen to anyone. Any person could get set up for a crime they did not commit especially in the age of computers and hackers. Andy ends up having a hard time in prison and having a dreadful experience, the only thing that saves him is his knowledge as a banker. This knowledge earns him an important role in the running of Shawshank. King is very effective in his usage of this true life horror. Any person can relate to the horror of Shawshank because it could happen to any of us. It is like the fear of being buried alive, just the fact that it could happen and you as a person are defenseless to it. All it takes is being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This relation can really connect the reader to the story and have them be truly taken by the horror laid out by the author.
-TWade
In the novel “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” by Stephen King is written to entertain us. Red is the narrator of the story and Andy Dufresne is the main character of the novel. Andy escapes the Shawshank prison by carving a hole into the roof of his cell with a rock-hammer, without out anyone knowing what he was doing. He hid the hole he carved behind a Rita Hayworth poster which was the sex model of that time. It took him twenty-seven years to escape the Shawshank prison. Ironically he escaped during the night without anyone hearing him, through the pipes of the sewer lines. Nobody would have known how he got out if it was not for Samuel Norton ripping the poster off the ceiling, out of anger because he could not figure out how Andy escaped. Andy escaped to Buxton to get his key for the bank security safe, hidden under a rock on a rock wall, to go to the bank to get his fake ID and money to start his new life in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. After Red got out of the prison on parole Red went to Buxton to the wall where the rock was, to see what Andy was talking about and found a note there from Andy to tell him to meet him in Mexico.
ReplyDeleteThe plot of the novel was to escape the Shawshank prison. It is ironic how long it takes Andy to escape the prison. It would be more realistic if Andy took less time to do it and throw some more complications into his plan, or it might not have been his plan at first. Andy could have been goofing off with his rock-hammer and accidentally hit the roof with it and then found out how week the concrete was so he kept chiseling at the roof. Telling us how he was a banker before he went to prison tells us that Andy was smart and thought things through before he acts. Which is a sign that it could have been his plan to escape the prison.
-Michelle Evans
The story, "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" by Stephen King, is about the escape of an inmate, Andy Dufresne, from Shawshank State Prison but the story is told form the perspective of another inmate, Red. The story is considered a horror but King does not follow the norm of hack-and-slash and gore but rather the use of lost of freedom. These people go from being free to having their entire life dictated to them. Red is serving three life sentences for the murders of his wife, their neighbor and their neighbor's child. In prison Red is the man who can get just about anything into prison for another inmate. Andy, who befriends Red shortly after going to prison, is what the guards and the warden call an ideal prisoner; he hardly gets into fights or stirs up trouble and he does all the guards' and warden's taxes and gives them advice on how to find loopholes to get out of paying taxes (Andy was a banker before he was put in prison so he new all about this). Andy was sentence to two life terms in prison for the murder of his wife and her lover but Andy was falsely accused and did not do it. Which leaves Andy to his very successful escape plan.
ReplyDeleteThe first point of view makes the suspense build. By having Red, who is not the main character, tell the story the reader does not know what exactly happens through the story. Red admits that he did not see everything that happened. Some parts he heard from other inmates which he said that inmates tend to stretch the truth but it is still has the bases of the story is still there. Later Red says "That's what I know; now I'm going to tell you what I think. I may have it wrong on some of the specifics, but I'd be willing to bet my watch and chain that I've got the general outline down pretty well"(91). Red does not know for sure what happened so the reader does not know either but they are to trust the word of a convicted murder. The only thing that is certain is that Andy escaped, found the rock and is in Mexico. That is it the rest is speculated by Red. The point of view also does not allow the reader to see where the story is going. The reader experiences it the say way Red did and that was out of the blue that Andy escaped. King limits the readers knowledge of the story by only allowing them to see the events through the eyes of one inmate.
Bryan Drescher
Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is told from within the confines of Shawshank prison in Maine and depicts the time spent there by two convicted murderer’s, Red and Andy Dufresne. Throughout their stay at Shawshank State Penitentiary, they experience the dampers of prison life. Andy becomes the subject of “The Sisters” cruel and unusual punishments, placing him in the infirmary on numerous occasions. After helping prison guard Hadley with a legal loophole to avoid taxes, Defresne emerges as the bearer of financial advice for all of the prison workers. While at Shawshank, Red becomes the go-to guy, gaining almost any kind of contraband, for a price of course. He obtained a rock hammer, rock blankets, and a Rita Hayworth poster for his dear friend Andy, all which lead to Andy’s escape from Shawshank. King drives the reader of this story into the unknown by exploring the ultimate fear of how much control one really has over his or her own life.
ReplyDeleteKing’s placement of Red and Andy into such brutality explains Andy’s turn into darkness. If Andy had not experienced the hardships placed on him by “The Sisters” and the burdens of life at Shawshank, the reader would not see his change in behavior. Andy loses his humanity, along with his innocence during his stay at the penitentiary. He tries to get released on hard evidence, but after being refused by the warden, Andy realizes that he has become too important to the people at the Shank. The reality hits him that he has no control over his future anymore, a fear King projects onto the reader through the setting.
Tracy Emery
In Stephen King’s, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, we are told the story of a prisoners’ experience that enables readers to connect their fears of not being able to control their live with those of the prisoners at Shawshank. The story is of Andy Defruense, told through the eyes of a fellow inmate, Red, “the only guilty man in Shawshank”. Red had already been in Shawshank for ten years when Andy arrived, making him the “all-knowing” character. For the first few years Red only watches Andy, interacting with him only a few times. But, as Andy begins to trust Red, after receiving multiple valuable item from him, they become friends. After an incident while tarring a roof, Andy becomes the financial adviser for the guards and warden. When the warden begins a business using the inmates as workers years later, it is Andy who is trusted to work on the financials, finding ways to hide all of the “dirty money”. When Tommy, a fellow inmate and friend of Andy, tells Andy he was cellmates with the man who committed the crime Andy was in for, Andy went straight to the warden. It is when the warden denies to help Andy it is the first time Red sees Andy as broken. Andy is helpless, and unable to control his future. At the end, the everyone in Shawshank is surprised to see that Andy was able to escape through a whole he has been digging for sixteen years. Once Red is released, he accompanies his friend Andy, who is now know as Peter, in Mexico to help run a hotel by the Pacific ocean, a place with no memory.
ReplyDeleteTo help the readers feel the fear of the prisoners Stephen King created two opposite characters in which everyone can relate to. Red, the guilty, all knowing prisoner who has been broken by the fact of having no choice, and Andy, a innocent man who seems oblivious to the fact he is in prison and always keeps his hope. The two extremes of prisoner types lets each reader determine their situation and how they can relate. Each character is put in the situation of having no control; Red, through his many parole hearings, and Andy through his search for Blatch, the man who killed his wife. Through the wide spectrum of characteristic King gives the two prisoners, his effectiveness is evident through the horror a reader feels when the character they are connecting with is helpless.
Brandy Riddle
Critical Analysis
ReplyDeleteStephan King’s “Shawshank Redemption” is a short story told from Red’s point of view on what he knows and what it is he thinks went on within the Shawshank Prison walls. This short story is about the inner workings of a highly secured state prison, and the hardships a life in jail can cause a person over the years of their sentence. In the Shawshank Redemption you see the truth about the relationships formed between the guards and the prisoners. You learn about; the deals made, the special privileges given to certain men, the cruel and hateful punishments directed at certain people or groups, and the secrets the guards tend to keep from the warden and the other guards in order to gain a little more money for themselves.
Red’s way of telling the story through dialogue is to not give out too much information at once. He tells the story in order, but tends to leave out certain details so that he can tell them at a later time where it will make more sense and have a greater effect. By leaving out certain pieces of information, it causes the reader to want to keep reading more so that they can find out these “untold details”.
Rachel Miller
Stephen King's Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is told from the point of view of one of the characters, Red. Red like all of the characters in the story is a prison. Shawshank is a state penitentary in Maine. Soon after ending up in Shawshank Red becomes the go to guy. He can get just about anything you would want into prison, except things like guns and hard drugs that could put him in a lot of trouble. Red gets three things for the new guy at the prison. A guy named Andy Dufrense. Andy is a jittery thing when he enters the prison and he wants to do is be alone. The three things Red gets for Andy are a rock hammer, some rock blankets, and picture of a woman from the outside, Rita Hayworth. These three things help Andy escape from his life sentence for two murders that he did not commit.
ReplyDeleteKing uses the fact that Andy and Red are so different to appeal to any and everyone who reads this story. Andy and Red are complete opposite. For one reason Red is guilty and Andy is innocent. The fact that Andy is innocent is another Horror faced in the book. Andy was sentenced to life in prison while Blatch, the man who did kill Andy's wife, runs free outside the walls of Shawshank able to live his life how he pleases.
AJ Gilpin