The Shawshank Redemption



""Get busy living... or get busy dyin'.""

The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 drama film based on Stephen King's novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption; it stars Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.

In 1947, young banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is found guilty of the murder of his wife and her lover; he is sentenced to life in prison, and his sentence is to be served at Maine's Shawshank penitentiary. The conditions are terrible, many of his fellow prisoners are sadistic, and many of the guards are even worse -- but life begins to look up as Dufresne becomes acquainted with an old black con, Ellis Redding (Morgan Freeman, the character also serves as the movie's narrator), commonly referred to as Red. A friendship begins after Red, "the man who knows how to get things", procures a rock hammer for Dufresne, an object he wishes to own in order to carve a soapstone chess set. The friendship will only strengthen over the coming years.

Twenty years pass within the prison walls, showing the growth and strength of Andy and Red's friendship, Andy's various attempts to better the life of his fellow inmates through education (facilitated by the financial advice he gives the prison's corrupt warden and guards), the quest to prove his innocence, and the attempt to remain mentally free and hopeful even when surrounded by the crushing gray of prison walls.

This movie exemplifies the potential gap between initial box office success and ultimate popularity. Back in 1994, it earned just over $28 million at the US box office; it was only the 52nd most successful film of its year. Despite the lukewarm box office reception (mainly due to its Word Salad Title and the distinct lack of female cast members), Shawshank received favorable reviews from critics and has since enjoyed a remarkable life on cable television and home video. Media magnate Ted Turner loved the film so much that he purchased the TV rights and showed it on one of his cable stations literally every weekend for years, which helped the film earn back its budget and give it the mainstream recognition it never received while in theaters. Shawshank continues to be hailed by critics and audiences alike even today -- it is often ranked amongst the greatest films of all time, and it is often found leading the Internet Movie Database's poll of top 250 films (it also has the highest number of votes) -- but this has lead to some Hype Aversion. The film is definitely worth seeing at least once, though (and it's on TNT practically every other weekend).

Shawshank has since been adapted for the stage. The producers insist they adapted the novella and not the film, but this claim is doubtful, since the character of Red is a black man instead of the red-haired Irishman of the book.


 * Had to Come to Prison to Be a Crook: The trope-naming example is done for reasons the audience can sympathize with. Andy is secretly planning to escape from prison and "expose" the warden as a crook. The warden would have him break the law anyway.. He says he never broke the law before going to jail, and we see nothing to contradict him.

"Boggs: Where do you learn this shit? Andy: Read it. You know how to read? You ignorant fuck?"
 * Ability Over Appearance: Traditionally, guys called "Red" are redheads. Initial casting calls had that in mind. The role is played by Morgan Freeman, who would not pick up that nickname naturally but owns the role anyway. It's explained in the film (though not in the novella), that Red's nickname comes from his name, Ellis Redding.
 * Adaptation Distillation: The movie makes several changes that keep the story moving.
 * The timeframe is cut from thirty years to twenty. (An actor's age range can only be stretched so far.)
 * Only one warden is dealt with.
 * The movie decides to, while the novella.
 * In the novella, . This subplot is eliminated in the movie, in which.
 * Several characters are combined.
 * Normaden, the Indian inmate who Andy briefly shared a cell with in the book, was cut from the movie.
 * Adaptation Expansion: The scene where Andy plays "Sull'aria" from The Marriage of Figaro over the prison loudspeakers was not written into the novella by Stephen King. After seeing it for himself, King said he wished he had.
 * Affably Evil: Norton initially comes across as stern and harsh, but well-meaning. Not for long, however..
 * Asshole Victim: Boggs.
 * Ass Shove: In the novella, Andy smuggles five hundred dollars into the prison by this method. Taken Up to Eleven by Red at the end, in which he smuggles out the pages on which he is writing the manuscript with the same trick. The novella is nearly one hundred pages long.
 * Badass: Hadley. Though it's apparently subverted in the end, when
 * Badass Bookworm: Andy Dufresne himself, of course,

"Brooks: Are you going to eat that? Andy: Wasn't planning on it. Brooks: [holds his hand out] Do you mind? [Andy hands it over skeptically] Brooks: [with a satisfied smile] Ahh, that's nice and ripe. [He opens his jacket and feeds it to a baby raven in his pocket] Brooks: Jake says "Thank you.""
 * He's no slouch in hand-to-hand as well, it's obvious that it's only superior numbers that let the Sisters get the better of him, and even then he manages to fight them off a number of times.
 * Bait and Switch: Andy finds a grub of some sort in his first prison meal. As he's examining it, he has the following conversation with a crusty old con who's been in prison 50 years and may or may not have a few screws loose:

"Red: I remember thinking it would"
 * Batman Gambit:
 * Berserk Button: Do not mention money when talking to Warden Norton.
 * Or call him obtuse.
 * To be on the safe side, don't talk to Hadley about his wife.
 * Big Bad:
 * Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Warden Norton
 * Book Safe:
 * Brick Joke: The library sequence. Amusing when the joke is introduced, but hilarious in hindsight. See the Funny Moments section for the dialogue.
 * Brutal Honesty: Towards the end, once he's lost his best friend, Red has become so tired and bitter of the endless cycle of his parole hearings and so inured to prison life that he finally tells the parole board exactly what he thinks of both them and himself. It's implied this candor is what finally gets him paroled.
 * Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: A non-military example in the forms of Warden Norton and Captain Hadley, made most apparent during the dressing-down of the new inmates.
 * It's especially effective as Captain Hadley is played by Clancy Brown.
 * Catch Phrase: Hadley: "On your feet!"
 * Chekhov's Armoury: Andy's "one-bunk Hilton" prison cell, starting with...
 * The Rock Hammer

""Neither are they. You'd have to be human first. They don't qualify.""
 * The Bible, in which Warden Norton nearly takes it from Andy and gives it back to him.
 * The Chess Set.
 * The posters on Andy's wall.
 * Chekhov's Gun: See the items in Chekhov's Armoury above. One of the items not in the Armoury is "Randall Stevens".
 * Chekhov's Gunman: Tommy Williams..
 * And the silent partner. The one with the bank account and the social security number.
 * Chekhov's Skill: Had Andy picked up any other hobby than rock-collecting, he might not have gotten too far.
 * Also Chess.
 * Cacophony Cover-Up
 * Captivity Harmonica: Both lampshaded AND subverted. Andy gets Red a harmonica as a gift, and he blows a little on it, but doesn't play.
 * The Chessmaster: Andy.
 * Complete with a Chess Motif
 * Cluster F-Bomb: The movie in general has abundant swearing throughout it, but most of the swearing seems to come from Byron Hadley.
 * Composite Character: In the novella, the prison goes through several wardens and guard captains. To save time and improve story flow, they are combined into Norton and Hadley for the movie, though it does bring up some Fridge Logic when you realize they've both had their respective positions for fifteen years or so without apparently aging, aside from some slightly graying hair.
 * Brooks is also a composite of several characters mentioned in passing in the novella.
 * Compressed Adaptation: The novella took place over thirty years, compressed to twenty in the film. Other small examples pop up besides this: for example, Red spends several months hunting for the volcanic glass rock in the novella, but in the film appears to find it after only a few hours.
 * Covers Always Lie: The back cover of the VHS tape for The Shawshank Redemption features an embrace between the sexy Mrs. Dufresne and her lover... two characters who are out of the picture within the film's first five minutes.
 * Death by Adaptation:
 * Deliberate Values Dissonance: The prosecuting attorney admits that the killing of Dufresne's adulterous wife and her lover, could, if it had been a 'hot-blooded crime of passion' be 'understood if not condoned '.
 * Depraved Homosexual: The Sisters are a nasty prison gang with a particular love of raping new inmates. As Red puts it when Andy remarks to their gaze that he's not homosexual:

"Andy: Look, if it's the squeeze, don't worry. I'd never say what goes on in here. I'd be just as indictable as you for laundering the money. Norton: Don't you ever mention money to me again, you sorry son of a bitch! Not in this office! Not anywhere! [Slaps intercom] Get in here! Now!
 * In the DVD commentary the director details how the Sisters are supposed to represent the depravity of rape in general rather than homosexuality being wrong, seeing as rape in prison is more about domination than physical attraction the Sisters are especially disgusting in this regard.
 * In the book, Stephen King is careful to draw a distinction between heterosexuals who just 'come to an arrangement', actual homosexuals and the 'sisters' who are just depraved rapists.
 * Determinator: Andy.
 * Disproportionate Retribution: After Warden Norton tells Andy that, Andy makes the mistake of saying something about it, calling the warden "obtuse", and then bringing up the money laundering scheme:

Andy: I was just trying to set your mind at ease, that's all...

[Guard enters]

Norton: [To guard] Solitary! A month!"

"Norton: [To guard] Give him another month to think about it."
 * As if that's not enough, when Andy's unprecedented month-long stay in the hole is almost up, Norton shows up to . Followed by the icing on the cake:

"Red: The guards just didn't notice it. Can't say I did either. I mean seriously, how often do you notice a man's ?"
 * Double Take: Heywood gives a nonverbal version of this to Red saying, "Guy likes to play chess. Let's get him some rocks." (Andy expressed interest in making his own chess set out of rocks he didn't have.) Heywood nods agreeingly, then turns to look at Red confused.
 * Down the Drain: Andy's escape through a Shawshank sewer pipe to freedom.
 * The Dragon: Captain Hadley.
 * Driven to Suicide:
 * subverts this, and arguably exploits it by deliberately acting as though he is suicidally depressed, in an effort to mislead the other characters as to his real plan.
 * Earn Your Happy Ending
 * Establishing Character Moment: Captain Hadley might have just been an unusually harsh prison guard (a job that pretty much requires at least a little harshness) until he.
 * Even Evil Has Standards: Captain Hadley. After Andy tells him he can help with his money problems, Hadley returns the favor by letting both the guards and the tar crew (consisting of the inmates Andy and Red knows) drink beer on the rooftop of the building they were tarring. He even steps this further in the very moment Boggs stepped into his cell (after Boggs unleashes his No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Andy), and Hadley unleashes his own no holds barred beat down on him.
 * Everybody Smokes: Played straight with most of the prison population, but makes sense given the time period.
 * Flowery Insults: Byron Hadley is a master of these.
 * Foreshadowing: Red describing Andy's dreams of getting out as "nothing but a shitty pipe dream."
 * Friend in the Black Market: Red.
 * Goodbye, Cruel World: Played straight with Brooks' postcard, subverted by Red's.
 * Gory Discretion Shot: Happens when
 * The scene in which Hadley beats Fat-Ass to death is lit in such that both men appear as silhouettes, more or less amounting to this trope.
 * Hadley gets in his first few licks on Boggs onscreen, but the beating clearly continues long after the cutaway.
 * Great Escape
 * Guile Hero: Andy
 * Hair-Trigger Temper/ Psycho for Hire: Capt. Byron Hadley.
 * Have You Told Anyone Else?: . Even though the other prisoners know about, they have no power to tell anyone outside of the prison.
 * He Had a Name: "What was his name?"
 * He Knows Too Much: A double example: Andy knew too much about Norton's corruption to be allowed to leave the prison, so Norton.
 * Heterosexual Life Partners: Andy and Red
 * Hidden in Plain Sight: How Andy makes off with Warden Norton's
 * Hidden in Plain Sight: How Andy makes off with Warden Norton's

"Warden Norton: Rule number one: no blasphemy. I will not have the Lord's name taken in vain in my prison."
 * Hope Is Scary: Red objects to hope on these grounds.
 * Hope Spot:
 * Hope Springs Eternal: The subtitle of the novella. It's found in Different Seasons, a collection of season-themed stories.
 * Hypocrite: Along with being a hypocrite in general, the Warden has a very subtle moment of this . Compare this line from Andy's arrival at the prison...
 * Hypocrite: Along with being a hypocrite in general, the Warden has a very subtle moment of this . Compare this line from Andy's arrival at the prison...

"Warden Norton: [Very sarcastically] Lord! It's a miracle!"
 * ...to this one near the end.

"Red: You're gonna fit right in. Everyone in here is innocent, you know that? Heywood, what you in here for? Heywood: Didn't do it. Lawyer fucked me."
 * That isn't even the start of it. His "IT'S A CONSPIRACY" rant at the end is obviously a case of projecting his own conspiring nature onto everyone else.
 * Incriminating Indifference: Andy comes off as an icy and remorseless killer at his trial.
 * Invented Individual: Andy creates "Randall Stevens" to be the fall guy in case his shady financial transactions for the Warden are detected by authorities.
 * Ironic Echo: After Andy claims he's innocent, this exchange happens:

"Tommy Williams: Yeah, well, what the hell do you know about it Capone? What are you in for? Andy Dufresne: Me? My lawyer fucked me. Everybody's innocent in here. Didn't you know that? (Everybody else starts laughing)."
 * Later this exchange,

"Heywood: Wait, you mean Andy's innocent? Like, for-real innocent?"
 * A sort of almost-echo occurs a bit later, after Tommy has revealed what he knows.

"Red: To my knowledge, he lived out the rest of his life drinking his food through a straw."
 * At one point, Norton hands Andy back his Bible, assuring him that "Salvation lies within". Just before, Andy leaves the Bible in Norton's safe: when Norton opens the Bible, he finds a note from Andy assuring Norton that salvation did indeed lie within -.
 * The Boast here was twofold -.
 * The Ishmael: Red (more so in the novella than the film).
 * It's All My Fault: Tommy blaming himself for, and Andy blaming himself for.
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Heywood.
 * Karma Houdini: The actual murderer of Andy's wife.
 * Kick the Son of a Bitch: Hadley, the leader of the guards, ambushes and severely beats Boggs, who screams and cries for help the whole time. Seeing as ambushing and severely beating people was what Boggs took sadistic pleasure in, one can't help but feel satisfied when Red sums up the end result...

"Brooks: The world went and got itself in a big damned hurry."
 * Laser-Guided Karma: Everybody gets their share in the climax.
 * Climax nothing, some characters get what was coming to them earlier on.
 * Averted in the novella: Norton and Hadley both simply retire and are never heard from again.
 * Luxury Prison Suite: Andy's cell is no nicer than the rest, but he gets a private cell and some leeway as far as contraband goes. Norton later refers to it as his "one-bunk Hilton," so it's presumably a sweeter setup than most prisoners have.
 * Magical Negro: An unusual race inversion of this trope, as it is pure, angelic Andy that changes Red's life.
 * Make It Look Like an Accident: A variation:
 * Manly Tears: Averted. We don't see it but We are told that Hadley "Sobbed like a little girl when They took him away".
 * Meaningful Echo: Some of Andy's final words to the Warden.
 * Mood Whiplash: When we see Norton having a polite conversation with a young inmate who wants to testify on Andy's behalf, it seems like Norton might be willing to give the guy a chance after all.
 * Moral Dissonance: Subverted. At first, Andy's may seem like a case of this, but
 * Music for Courage: Andy plays an opera record over the prison's PA system.
 * Mythology Gag: In one scene, Andy asks Red (played by Morgan Freeman) how he got his nickname. He thinks for a moment and replies with an ironic grin, "Maybe it's because I'm Irish." In the novella, Red was indeed a red-haired Irishman.
 * No Animals Were Harmed: Darabont revealed on the DVD Commentary that in order to get this "rating" they couldn't even feed fish bait (read: worms that were already going to be skewered on a hook and fed to fish) to the baby crow. Instead, they had to find a worm that had already died of natural causes.
 * No-Holds-Barred Beatdown
 * What Byron administers to the pudgy new inmate that "wins" the New Fish Crying Lottery.
 * The Sisters repeatedly administered these to Dufresne, driving him deeper and deeper into despair
 * Nominal Importance:
 * Played With the rest of the 8-man band bar Andy and Red were never introduced and we only see them as "those guys Andy and Red hang out with" (with the exception of Heywood, which serves as something of a comic relief). They actually do have names, though mentioned only in the credits and if you analyze the throwaway conversations. Ranked in order of relative importance after Andy, Red, and Heywood:
 * The big guy who looks like Tom Waits and speaks in an authoritative voice is Floyd.
 * The serious-looking one (who told to "calm the fuck down") is Jigger.
 * The calm-looking one usually sporting a denim jacket is Ernie. He's the one who wanted a pool table.
 * The big guy with vaguely Italian look is Snooze. He's the one who accused Heywood of soiling his trousers when confronted with.
 * And the one with the glasses is Skeet.
 * Played straight of course, as traditionally in films, with many others, including Mrs. Dufresne and her golfer boyfriend.
 * Ironically, "Fat Ass" (the one Hadley beat up to death) is never actually named. "What was his name?" Nobody knows, Andy. And one can argue that he's actually quite an important character. Surely more so than, say, Skeet above.
 * Oh Crap: Several in a row on part.
 * The way he looks out the window when.
 * The way he looks at.
 * The look on his face when he sees a newspaper saying
 * Also, the look on his face when
 * The Old Convict: Red, to an extent, but more certainly Brooks, an elderly man who finds he is unable to adjust to life outside prison walls. Brooks was in prison for so long, since 1905, that when he's released in the '50's, it's a world he can't recognize. For one thing Brooks remarks that when he went in, he'd only seen one car, when he was a boy.

""Wait, he's innocent-innocent?""
 * Once More, with Clarity: When Andy leaves the warden's office, it seems like  A few minutes later you see the same sequence of events with a few more details
 * Only Known by Their Nickname: Red.
 * Perpetual Tourist: does this after breaking out of prison.
 * Pet the Dog: Hadley agreeing to Andy's request for the beers could be interpreted as such, Red going so far as to describe his behavior as "magnanimous". It's made particularly explicit in the novella, where Red points out that there was nothing stopping Hadley from throwing Andy off the roof and accepting his advice anyway.
 * In the movie at least, Andy did point out that he could set up the tax-free gift for what presumably is cheaper than the "ball-washing bastard" lawyers would charge. So Hadley had a reason to keep him alive.
 * Police Brutality: Taken Up to Eleven by Hadley
 * Prison Rape: The "Sisters".
 * The Quiet One: Andy.
 * Race Lift: Red is Irish in the book (hence the nickname), but played by Morgan Freeman in the movie. See Mythology Gag, above.
 * Rape Discretion Shot: The camera shows "The Sisters" beating up Dufresne, but pans away from the actual rape.
 * Record Needle Scratch: Literally, when Hadley busts into Norton's office and puts an end to Andy's playing of Le Nozzi di Figaro. "On your feet!"
 * Red Herring: The parts leading to By morning,  Instead,  The fact that, up until that point, the audience was never informed in any way that  made the Twist Ending (which by today's standards is not a twist at all) all the more glorious. All the Red Herring'ed scenes were played back during this revelation, highlighting the subtle details which we got wrong earlier.
 * Redemption in the Rain: The Canonical One.
 * Refuge in Audacity: In the novella, Red discusses several inmates he knew who successfully broke out of Shawshank, most of them by employing this trope.  plan probably qualifies as well.
 * Road Apples: Or horse apples. Either way, not rocks.
 * Running Gag: Apparently everyone at Shawshank is "innocent", and just had "a lawyer fuck them".


 * Shout-Out: Many to The Count of Monte Cristo ("by Alexandree Dumbass").
 * Two of Red's friends in prison are named 'Heywood' and 'Floyd'. Heywood Floyd was one of the main characters in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
 * Smug Snake: Blatch, the only criminal in the movie to gloat to others about killing people. You'd think this would be the kind of thing that would backfire, and yet  For contrast, most inmates claim innocence, Red claims guilt but also remorse, and even, though obviously remorseless, doesn't go as far as to actually GLOAT about murder.
 * Suspicious Spending: Averted -- Norton runs his scams for years, but has a separate identity set up to receive the proceeds of his crimes. Judging by the amount that's there by the end of the movie, it appears he hasn't spent much.
 * Sweet and Sour Grapes: Played straight when Red goes for his parole hearing and is rejected when he says he's been rehabilitated, and when he all but tells them to piss off the third time around
 * Tantrum Throwing:
 * Token Minority: A possible reason for Red's Race Lift. There are literally two other non-white characters with speaking parts. It's particularly noticeable given the setting, as American prisons have had disproportionately large black populations for much of the twentieth century (although Maine, the state in which the film is set, does have a black population well below the national average).
 * Triumphant Reprise: The same melody played when Andy is led through the prison doors is played again later when.
 * Villainous Breakdown: gets a severe one before even being . He freaks out at the fact that, going into an intense rant about how it's a conspiracy that everyone's in on. After THAT,
 * What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: The warden keeps his safe  under a needlepoint that reads "His judgment cometh and that Right Soon..."
 * Andy keeps
 * Word Salad Title: One of the main reasons the movie had poor box office. To even vaguely understand it, you have to know that Shawshank is a prison... but it's a fictional one, so the only way you'd know that is by seeing the movie or reading the book in the first place.
 * That's why it's averted in Russian translation, where both the original book and the movie were titled Escape from Shawshank
 * The same goes for the Latin American versions, since the movie was named Sueños de Fuga (Dreams about Escaping) in Spanish and Um Sonho de Liberdade (A Dream of Freedom) in Brazil.
 * In Spain it was just "Life Imprisonment". Funny thing, the following year's Dead Man Walking was called just "Death Penalty" too...
 * In Italy it was titled Le ali della libertà (The Wings of Freedom).
 * Wrongly Accused: Andy.