“Hope is a good thing, may be the best of the things. And good thing never dies” (Andy Dufresne).
‘The Shawshank Redemption’ is a 1994 American drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont, based on the 1982 Stephen King novella ‘Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption’.
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In 1947 Portland, Maine, banker Andy Dufresne is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover and is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at Shawshank State Penitentiary. However, only Andy knows he didn't commit the crime. While there, he forms a friendship with Red (Morgan Freeman), experiences brutality of prison life, adapts, helps the warden, etc; all in 19 years. Towards the end, Andy Dufresne redeems his freedom from the prison by spending the 19 years tunnelling through the wall of his cell with his rock hammer which he managed to get into the prison through his friend Red who knew how to procure items from the outside world. Freedom is the foremost virtue the movie upholds in all its strength and spirits. Man can choose either of the ways as Andy suggests: to get busy living or to get busy dying. Andy gets busy in building his way towards life and its very essence-freedom. He invests his time and wits in the same for two decades.
Andy is a kind, noble, intelligent and hard to understand type of man, Andy is cold and snobbish, because he's always so calm and composed, rarely revealing his inner thoughts or true character. He was a vice president of a large Portland bank before he was sentenced to life prison.
The purpose of this essay is to look into the protagonist's personality and character development throughout the period based on the theories of personality and emotions. The environment in a prison exhibits three major social psychology concepts that can be easily discerned through the fictional movie. The main character demonstrates concepts of social psychology through his relationships, persuasion techniques, and encounters with aggression. Throughout Andy's and Red's sentence in prison, issues of identity, motivation and anxiety are brought about within the movie. The prison subculture is reflective of the offender subculture on the streets and while in prison, offenders take on adaptive roles that will help them adjust to prison life and more importantly, help them survive.
Paul Costa and Robert R. McCrae of the National Institutes of Health and Warren Norman and Lewis Goldberg of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the University of Oregon, respectively, discovered that most human character traits can be described using five dimensions. That is now called the Big Five personality traits, also briefed as OCEAN. Each letter stands for a personality trait, namely: extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism.
Extraversion trait indicates how outgoing and social a person is. In the movie, talking about Andy, Red quotes, “It wasn't until one month went by that he opened his mouth to say more than two words to somebody”. This was when Andy approached Red for the first time to procure a rock hammer into the prison. Even throughout Andy's life in the prison, he didn't interact a lot with anyone and was a very secretive person who didn't express anything at all, something that excited Red since he wanted to know what was going through his mind. Andy even told Red towards the end of the movie that his wife always complained about him being a closed book. All these evidences go on to show that Andy was an introverted person who wasn't very social and hence was low in extroversion trait.
Agreeableness is a personality trait manifesting itself in individual behavioral characteristics that are perceived as kind, sympathetic, cooperative, warm, and considerate. A person who scores low on agreeableness may put their own interests above those of others. In context of the movie, when Andy was made in charge of the library, he talked to the warden about funding for the library but when denied for the same, he still kept on insisting to getting new books and fund for the library and wrote a letter a week for 6 years to the state senate just so he could build a library for the inmates of the prison. He also helped a lot of inmates to get their high school degree. When he once was in the audio control room of the prison and the in charge of the room was in the washroom, he played a melancholic Italian song on the speaker for every inmate to listen to and when compelled to stop it, he instead locked the in charge inside the bathroom. He also locked the main door of the room when asked to turn the music off by the warden who came towards the control room hearing the music play on the speakers. Andy instead turned the volume up and just sat on the chair with his legs wide spread whilst enjoying the melody of the song. The warden had to break the glass of the see through door to be able to get in and stop him and later he was put into the hole (a dark confinement space for those who portray indiscipline or any form of activity that drives the warden up the wall) for 2 weeks. He also traded the warden for cold beer (even though he had given up drinking long time ago) for his mates in return for him helping the warden with saving money on tax returns. Considering all the facts, if we consider agreeableness as being polite to the societal construct and agreeing with the norms, Andy Dufresne would actually score low on agreeableness. But considering the fact that agreeableness also means putting others needs before one's own, he would score high on agreeableness since he posed several maneuvers that shows that he couldn't care less about the aftermath of his actions when it comes to doing good for others.
In Schachter-Singer's theory of cognitive arousal of emotions a stimulus leads to both bodily arousal and the labeling of that arousal (based on the surrounding context), which leads to the experience and labeling of the emotional reaction. When Andy finally managed to crawl through the 500 yards (equal to 5 football fields) drainage pipe leading to a water body, when he finally realized and looked around that he made it out after 19 years into the prison; he had a physical arousal which was signified by relaxation of the muscles, smiling (including eyes) and an open body language and was accompanied with the thought that this is happiness (labeling of the arousal), something he had waited for decades. According to the theory, only then does he experience the emotion happiness that is experience and labeling of the emotional reaction.
Throughout the movie, the basic character of Andy remains the same. But the way he approaches situations to cope up with the new routine and new rules changes significantly as he quotes himself, “On the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook”, whilst he was narrating to Red about how he's helping the warden with stocks, securities, tax-free municipals by creating and running a bank account using the name of a person who doesn't exist in the real world.
Freedom is the predominant advantage the movie upholds in all its power and spirits. Man can choose either of the ways as Andy suggests: to get busy living or to get busy dying.
The movie portrays how a person changes his means of action or approaching solutions according to the situation he or she has been put in. Andy Dufresne being a highly respected banker, and a man of good deeds outside the prison manages his way out through crook. And even though he was an introvert, he was compelled to approach Red (luckily enough, they became the best of friends in the prison) for procuring the rock hammer and other necessary items like the poster of Rita Hayworth to hide the hole through the cell wall.
“I need to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their wings are brighter than others” (Red).
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