The Movie Shawshank
The movie Shawshank is about the 1940s New England jail system. The movie gives the two major protagonists' personas to the audience. (Red and Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne). The latter, Andy Dufresne, is the protagonist of the movie and was unjustly sentenced to two life terms at Shawshank. The audience is gripped by the suffering, tribulations, and difficulties Any and Red have faced during their more than eighteen years in jail. Eventually, one of them manages to break out of prison, and the other is given the long-awaited parole. The concluding sequences show a happy conclusion that enables the viewers to share in the protagonist's happiness.
The Shawshank Movie
The Shawshank movie, which is directed by Frank Darabont, is a story of giving hope, much of the activities and events revolve around challenges that any individual can identify with when watching the movie. Meaning that the director and cast of the film are in the quest to elaborate on the audience; in spite of any challenges a person may go through in life he or she can have hope that everything is going to turn out well (King & Frank, nd). The prison represents a perfect contrast of a challenging or horrible situation one may find him/herself in, the prison which is depicted as a maximum security center of the mid-1940s is used as a tool to bring 'mayhem' or 'trouble' to the prisoners.
Themes of Shawshank Redemption
Family
Joyce Carol book on "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" has focused his work in portraying the lives of teenagers in the modern American families. Thus the book has a great emphasis on the theme of family, which the will be compared the same theme of family with Sherman Alexis book This is what it means to say Phoenix, Arizona. Connie's family is perceived as a typical American family in the 'normal' conventional way: a simple family with a stay-at-home- mom and a hardworking father, children and the normal barbecue Sundays. The latter represents a normal middle-class family home setup, and the conventions challenges experienced by parents and their teenage children. The author of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been, draws her attention on the woman of the family, exploring her relationships which have been negatively affected by the society which perceive or label them as marriageable, sexual and household objects to be at the disposal of male dominance. The spectrum of feminity which is the woman being a sister and a mother- in a collision with each other, they are enemies within themselves and they can't be seen or said to be friends. The desire of the daughter to attract boys in any necessary way or form is characterized by the lack of the father-figure at home; the father is not always at home to 'check' on his daughter. The absence of the father at home has exposed the possibility of the daughter making positive or meaning relationship with boys.
In contrast to This is what it means to say Phoenix, Arizona the book slightly differs on the contextual theme of the family where Sherman's works involved the death of parents and the right of passage coherently, it addresses the issues revolving around moral questions and advice regarding family life. A narrator is a third person, who introduces the audience to the strained family relationships and the journey to self-identity in the context of Native America. The author demonstrates how families can endure personal and broken relationships among family members and the resulting consequences of the guidance, direction, and understanding towards the family members, especially the children. Throughout the book, the author allows the audiences to ask themselves important questions that revolve around family life and whether they can make same or different choices if they have to endure the family struggles illustrated in the book.
Prison
In Rita Hayworth book, Shawshank Redemption Andy is wrongfully convicted of crimes he believes he did not commit; he is sentenced to Shawshank, a prison considered to be a fortress where no prisoner can escape. It easy for any person serving double life in such a scenario to lose hope in seeing freedom in the future, at the beginning; the latter is optimistic that he will acquire his freedom through the legal system and justifies the fact that you can be hopeful while still in prison. Because at this point he is positive about the justice system and that the jury will exonerate him. He is later sentenced to life in imprisonment, while in prison he quickly makes friends and take the warden's job offer and utilized these opportunity to plan for his escape from jail which he achieves after eighteen years. In contrast to "Sonny's blues" by James Baldwin, the unknown narrator is shocked to realize, from the newspaper that his younger brother has been arrested and taken to jail for selling heroin. He appears sympathetic because he understands the difficulties of prison life and he would not want his brother to be locked up. Unlike Andy who is sentenced to life, Sonny is serving a short sentence which sees him later being released from prison, unlike the latter who plans his escape and digs a tunnel which he uses to escape to prison.
Character Adaptation
Like many movie adaptations, the Shawshank book experienced to some extent differences and similarities from the book while being depicted in motion pictures, a good example to illustrate the film adaptation is Andy Dufresne "When Andy came to Shawshank in 1948, he was thirty years old. He was a short, neat little man with sandy hair and small, clever hands. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles..." such physical features resonated well with the film starring, Tom Hank's who actualized the character of the latter with ease and fluidity, transitioning the actions and words of Any from the book to depicting him on the motion picture. His character traits and physical body language were in contrast with the book; the ability to crunch numbers made him considered the man with "clever" hands and was made to work as a personal accountant for the warden.
During the filming of the movie the director was drawn to illustrate the nitty-gritty of the works of Rita Hayworth, by casting someone who would create striking resemblance in both physical and actual characters. Which according to many film critic Hanks appeared to be the perfect fit, because of his physical features and acting skills that enabled him to fit perfectly into the role of Andy. His relatively young looks, appeared to reflect the same age as that of Any when he ended up in prison, meaning the aging And's time in jail was easily cast because it was easy to make physical changes to mimic the aging process of the latter after eighteen years behind bars.
Reference
King, Stephen, and Frank Muller. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. Simon & Schuster Audio, 2016.
