Shawshank Redemption Sociological Analysis

Tasha Otterson
Kirsten Lindbloom
Sociology 101
25 April 2012
Shawshank Redemption

When Mr. Andy Defresne, a successful banker, found out his wife was having an affair with a pro golfer at the country club he refused to give his wife a divorce. As he began drinking and feeling confused, he loaded his gun and had every intention to kill his wife but had second thoughts and decided not to commit the crime. The next day, the bodies of his wife and the golf pro were found. The police also found evidence of footprints, tire tracks, bullets and fingerprints were found on the alcohol bottle Andy had in his possession that night.
The main social issue in this movie is justice. Andy was convicted and sentenced to serve two life sentences
of both murders when he was in fact innocent of this horrendous crime. Being convicted of murder is an extremely serious crime. It is the most powerful of all norms and is known as taboo. Andy has no choice but to begin his new life in a rural area known as Shawshank prison. When he arrives at a dystopia, he has a quiet way about him. The way he walks and talks just wasn’t normal. It may just be his beginner 's mind where our minds don 't know what it will find so it is open to new encounters and experiences. With a thought process like this, we are willing to learn new things. It was like he didn’t have a care in the world. Maybe it was part of his sociological Imagination being able to see the world differently from a different perspective other than our own. It does help us better understand ourselves as well as society and other people. Another social issue is the violence the prisoners endure during their stay at the prison. One man gets inhumanely beaten by a guard and his baton when he arrives at the prison because he asks “when do we eat?” The new prisoners are degraded by being hosed down in a steel cage with high pressure water and covered in delousing powder to remove all the outside world contaminants. They also have to walk to their prison cells naked holding their clothes and a bible. When one of the “fresh fish” broke down crying, pleading for his life during the first night, the prison guards beat him and kick him in the face until he lay still on the floor. They brought him to the infirmary but the doctor had already gone home for the night so he lay there until the next morning and by then, he was already dead.
The issue discrimination and possible racism arises when Red enters a room where five white men sit at a table. As his parole hearing begins, he is asked if he feels if he has been rehabilitated. Although he is polite, well-mannered and swears he has been rehabilitated, his parole is rejected. After 30 years of serving his sentence, Red is once again brought before the parole board and is rejected. Red is then brought to another parole hearing after serving 40 years of his life in Shawshank prison. This time there are four men and a woman on the board. The board members once again ask Red if he feels as though he has been rehabilitated. Red expresses his thoughts about what he believes the word rehabilitated means in such an honest and non-threatening way, he was approved for parole.
Social class did play a big part in this movie. Andy was a predominant and successful vice-president of a large bank in Portland before his imprisonment. While resurfacing the roof on a factory, Andy overhears the captain complaining that he is going to have to pay the government taxes on the inheritance money from his rich but deceased brother’s estate. Andy approaches the corrupted captain and offers him a solution to his problem. Since Andy was a banker prior to his incarceration, he is willing to complete the legal paperwork for the captain nearly free of charge. The agreement was to give Andy’s in-group a few beers they could enjoy after a long day’s work in return for completing the paperwork for the captain. After the warden, Norton, notices Andy is good with numbers Andy is transferred to the library. This was not to help Andy but to exploit Andy’s accounting skills. This is similar to society’s conflict theory. Basically, the rich overpower the poor and take advantage of situations so the rich can benefit from them. The people who believe in the conflict theory also believe the civil rights are bad in society and they are using that to control society.
A different guard approaches Andy requesting financial help in setting up a trust fund for his children’s educations. Andy takes on the title financial accountant at the prison where he is allowed to set up an office to complete tax returns for the guards, including Norton’s. Norton denies Andy’s request for funding the expansion of the prison’s library’s books but agrees to mail his weekly letters to the State Senate. After six years of his persistent letter writing, Andy’s wishes were granted and a five hundred dollar payment was made for the library’s expansion.
Although Andy was the one who transformed the prison library, Norton took all the credit for his famous inside-out program. Norton was in the limelight with the media and even delivered public speeches. He also creates the valuable community service program that puts inmates to work outside of the prison as an act of public service and cheap labor for the tax payers. The media teaches us how to do many things like how to behave, to be accepted, what to value, what is normal and how gender fits into society. Once Andy realizes this is only one of the many corrupt scams Norton is guilty of he decides to conceal the money laundering and financial records of Norton’s. Not only that, Andy keeps the FBI and IRS from finding out by creating a fake person’s identity on paper. As a new busload of prisoner’s arrive at the prison, a new generation of convicts enter the world of the corrupted lifestyle of many. Tommy, a thief sentenced to two years for breaking and entering, confides in Red. Several years earlier while he was in another prison, a prior cellmate of his, Elmo Blatch, admitted to murdering a pro golfer and his lover. Elmo tells his story to Tommy and brags about how they pinned it on Andy. As Andy explains this to Norton, he isn’t convinced of this “far-fetched” story. Norton feared that Andy would be paroled if his conviction was dismissed so he placed Andy in solitary confinement for a month. Meantime, Tommy is summoned to speak with Norton outside in a gated area. After Norton questions Tommy about his story, Tommy swears on the good book that what he told Andy was the truth. Norton then signals for a sniper to kill Tommy.
After Norton indirectly murders Tommy, Andy refuses to assist Norton in any other corrupt scams he has in mind. Andy is then sentenced to another month in solitary confinement. Once Andy is released from solitary confinement he goes back to carrying on his duties for Norton. Andy has no choice but to comply and follow prescriptions to avoid proscriptions. That night, Andy switches the black ledger and files that document the illegal funneling of payoff funds with replicas. He wore Norton’s shirt and tie underneath his prison clothes and also shined up his shoes wearing them back to his cell unnoticed. Andy definitely internalized his freedom and was determined to get it back.
Andy wasn’t in his cell the next morning for a headcount. Andy had placed the incriminating account records and chess pieces into a sealed plastic bag, tied it around his foot and escaped through the hole in the wall, which was behind a poster, he had been working on for many years. The man that had only existed on paper had come to life. Andy provided the banks with the proper identification to withdraw a total of 370 thousand dollars of Norton’s money. Andy sends a significant package through the mail that was delivered to the Portland Daily Bugle. Norton reads the headlines of the newspaper the next morning and finds Andy’s bible in his safe instead of his black ledger. As the warden looks out his office window he watches the arrest of the captain. Norton opens his desk drawer, grabs his handgun, loads it and shoots himself in the head before he is able to be detained.
Brooks and Red had no faith in their ability to make it on the outside because they have been institutionalized for so long. Brooks was an important and educated man while he was in prison but once on the outside, he is nothing. Brooks was paroled after serving 50 years. As he grasps the bus seat in front of him, he is headed towards Portland to a halfway house. He was even terrified to cross the street. Brooks worked as a grocery bagger at the local grocery store. He felt lonely, afraid and felt like he didn’t fit in with the outside world. He even contemplated shooting the grocery store manager just so he could go back to prison. He simply didn’t like being on the outside and decided he wasn’t going to stay. Brooks made the decision and hung himself in his room. The one thing Red continuously thought about were ways to break his parole so he could go back to Shawshank because that’s all he knew.
Brooks also knew it was a terrible thing to live in fear. All Brooks and Red wanted were to be back where things made sense to them, a place where they wouldn’t have to be afraid all the time. The only thing that kept Red from ending his life was the promise he made to Andy once he got out. That was to go to Buxton, where Andy asked his wife to marry him, to obtain what Andy had left there for him. Red ends up making it to Buxton and finds a letter from Andy. Andy would like for Red to travel a little further so they could be reunited once again. Red finally joins Andy on the beach in Mexico. This is where they enjoy their newfound freedom together in utopia. Language is critical in creating social life because without it there would be such lack of communication we wouldn’t be where we are today if we didn’t have it. Language allows us to communicate how we are feeling at that very moment, what our thoughts are, what we like/dislike, it describes people, it categorizes places and things and most importantly it gives us a sense of reality and it makes us who we are
today. Gender roles begin early and continue throughout our lives. This is the process of learning how to become masculine or feminine and is taught by families, schools, peers and the media. However, there are individuals that have a different sexual orientation than others. In this case Bogs homosexuality means that he is attracted to the same sex. Although, there are studies that show there may be a possible “gay gene” which could potentially explain the sexual orientation of others. If sexual orientation is something that people are born with then gays and lesbians should not be discriminated against. This would also help gays and lesbians gain tolerance from American’s because sexual orientation would be something a person would be born with and not just a lifestyle choice anymore. Until further research is recorded to prove this theory true, many people will still tend to look down upon others sexual preferences. While Andy was taking a shower a guy named Bogs, one of the prison’s rapists, expresses a liking for Andy and asks him if anyone has come at him or got to him yet.
Andy works in the prison laundry room and is assaulted by Bogs and two other men in the stockroom. They beat him and he is repeatedly victimized but at times he was able to fight them off. This was a routine for Andy and the horrific abuse continued for the first couple years of Andy’s sentence. He again is cornered and threatened with a steel spike by Bogs and his friends. Andy refuses the advances of Bogs and is beaten severely. When the captain catches wind of the incident, he protects his legal advisor, Andy, and beats Bogs so bad he is transferred to a prison hospital. Bogs was never able to walk again. He ended up a vegetable and had to be fed out of a feeding tube. Andy was never victimized by them again. Rapists most definitely go against our accepted mores and are sanctioned by being sent to prison. Some rapists are even murdered while serving their prison
sentence.

Works Cited Page
Darabont, Frank , dir. Shawshank Redemption. Dir. Richard Francis-Bruce. Columbia Pictures,
Warner Bros., 1994. Film. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161/>.

Dirks, Tim. "The Shawshank Redemption." filmsite. amc, 2012. Web. 25 Apr 2012.
<http://www.filmsite.org/shaw.html>.