Shawshank Redemption
Uploaded by Becky0914 on Apr 23, 2002
In the movie The Shawshank Redemption based on a novella by Steven King, the movie shows how prison life affects prisoners when they are released from jail. Prisoners can choose to go down two different paths. One path they can take is to live their life, or they can choose to take their life. In the movie there is an important character named Andy. Andy was put in jail for the murder of his wife, which he knows he did not do. He becomes good friends with Red and the Guards like him because he is a banker. Andy is an outspoken prisoner with a lot of common sense. In one part of the movie Andy says, “Get busy living or get busy dying.” This quote plays an important role in the movie because Red and Brooks who are two important characters get out of jail and must make the choice to either “Get busy living or get busy dying.”
When people are in jail for a long period of time, they get used to the simplest things in life. Prisoners get food, have a place to sleep, have clothes to wear, and have books to read. They adapt to the guards always telling them when to wake up or when to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. Prisoners get so used to these things that when they get out of jail, they don’t know what to do with themselves. They have been taken care of for so many years and now they are let out on their own. Prisoners are used to a small world and then they have to go live in a big world. Most of the time this is scary for prisoners they may be excited to get out and also scared. They have no money to live on, no place to live, nor a job to get by on. The movie offers two ways of dealing with life after prison; you can either live or die.
Brooks was an older man who had been in jail for many years. When Brooks heard about his release he grabbed another prisoner and took a sharp tool to his neck. He said that he was going to kill him so that he could stay in jail. Andy came to the scene with Red and convinced Brooks to put down the knife because everything was going to be alright. Brooks was then...