Shawshank Redemption Themes

The Shawshank Redemption

I. Character:

Generally, in a conventional film, the principle character will possess these qualities:

* We identify with him or her
* They engage us.
I want to be clear here that we do not necessarily have to like the principle character, but we do have to be engaged by the character; perhaps curiosity is enough. However, in almost every conventional film, the film tries to make the principle character likable. It accomplishes this through any number of ways:

•The character has suffered some kind of loss, or faces some kind of loss
•The character is the victim of some kind of injustice.
•The character has done good for some other character
•The character experiences unrequited longing
•The character is in some way vulnerable
•The character is
* They grow in some way, which means that in some ways, they are naïve at the beginning of the film.

With this laid out, let's look at The Shawshank Redemption, and consider how the film draws us to the principle character in a number of ways:

A. First Impressions

When we first meet Andy Dufresne, he's in distress, waiting outside the bungalow where his wife is having an affair with the golf pro, and so our sympathies are in his favor. Notice that we don't have to know what he's upset about-just that he is upset. Shortly, we find that he is under assault in a courtroom. We do not yet know whether he is guilty or not, but because the film first showed him in distress, and led us to feel concern for him, we cannot shut off that feeling, and so when he's in court, we're in his corner when he's under cross examination by the prosecuting attorney. First impression is the most important impression as a film works to draw us to a character. Think about how other