The Shawshank Redemption: Crime Doesn T Pay
The Shawshank Redemption: Crime Doesn’t Pay
The story Shawshank Redemption is in many ways a classic example of the saying “crime doesn’t pay”. The author Stephen King uses the characters Andy, Red, Warden Norton, Hadley and Boggs to show how a life of crime and treating others badly will eventually catch up with a person, while living an honest life and treating others with respect and kindness, no matter how difficult, will benefit a person in the end.
Andy Dufresne is a banker from Maine who is accused of murdering his wife and her lover after finding out about their affair and that she is planning on leaving him for the golf pro. Andy gets drunk and plans to go confront the two of them, but changes his mind and throws the gun in …show more content…
the river. During his trial, Andy seems cold arrogant when he is questioned by the prosecutor, which leads the judge to believe that Andy is guilty. The judge doesn’t believe Andy shows any remorse whatsoever, and sentences him to fifty years in prison. Andy proclaims his innocence throughout the movie, but eventually tells Red that he didn’t pull the trigger but he might as well had, because he was cold and distant toward his wife, and his actions, or lack thereof, drove his wife into the arms of another man. He believes that if he had been a better husband, she wouldn’t have cheated, and she would still be alive today. Although he believes he deserves punishment, he does not believe that the punishment he receives fits the crime.
Not only is Andy sent to prison, he is raped and beaten repeatedly by Boggs and the sisters, or “bull queers”, a gang that terrorizes prisoners through physical and sexual abuse.
Andy pretty much keeps to himself and doesn’t bother anyone, so it doesn’t seem fair that he is being harassed by other inmates. Boggs is the leader of the gang that bullies Andy, and he is the person that instigates the conflicts. It seems as if Boggs and the bull queers are going to torment Andy throughout the entire movie, and the villains are going to win after all. This goes on for two years, until Andy is able to get on the good side of Hadley, the foreman of the prison guards by helping him hide an inheritance of $35,000 from the IRS. Andy becomes a financial advisor to Hadley and the other guards at Shawshank and earns their respect. The rapes and beatings continue until one day Boggs and the bull queers attack Andy, and because he fights back, they nearly beat him to death. Seeking revenge for Andy, who has helped them tremendously, Hadley and the other guards beat Boggs in his cell until he is paralyzed and has to live out the rest of his days in a minimum security prison in a wheelchair. Boggs continuously tormented Andy by abusing him physically and sexually. He got away with it for two years, but eventually his bad deeds got the best of
him.
Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding is the man in Shawshank prison who “can get it for you”. He is a very important inmate at Shawshank, because if you need something that can’t be supplied by the prison, he can get it for you. He is serving a life sentence, and is considered the “only guilty man in Shawshank”, because he pleads guilty to killing his wife for insurance money. Red is one of those characters in the story that understand the concept of paying for the crimes you commit. He is truly remorseful for the murder, yet this does not come across when he goes in front of the parole board. Each time he is up for parole, he tells the parole board what he thinks they want to hear. They assume he lacks sincerity, and because of this his parole repeatedly denied. After Andy escapes from prison and thirty years into his own sentence, Red finally gets the courage to tell the parole board exactly what he thinks about whether he has been rehabilitated without sugar coating his statement. It is only then that the parole board allows him to be released from prison. Red’s story shows that even if you commit the most horrible crime, if you are truly remorseful and willing to pay for the crimes you commit, it will not go unnoticed and you can make up for it in the end.
The movie Shawshank Redemption gives us many views on the theme “crime doesn’t pay. It shows us how karma eventually catches up with you and ultimately you will pay the price if you purposely torment others and commit crimes for your own benefit. Occasionally the good deeds will outweigh the bad and cancel each other out. An example of this is when Andy escapes from the prison. He steals Warden Norton’s shoes and suit, and then removes all the money he has been embezzling for the warden from all of the bank accounts he has set up and escapes to Mexico. In the end, Andy is redeemed after spending nineteen years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Prior to escaping, Andy not only assists the prison guards, but also the prisoners by educating them, building a new library, and introducing them to new music. His good deeds while in prison seem to be somewhat of repentance for the poor treatment of his wife, which he believes ultimately, causes her death.
The story Shawshank Redemption is in many ways a classic example of the saying “crime doesn’t pay”. The author Stephen King uses the characters Andy, Red, Warden Norton, Hadley and Boggs to show how a life of crime and treating others badly will eventually catch up with a person, while living an honest life and treating others with respect and kindness, no matter how difficult, will benefit a person in the end.
Andy Dufresne is a banker from Maine who is accused of murdering his wife and her lover after finding out about their affair and that she is planning on leaving him for the golf pro. Andy gets drunk and plans to go confront the two of them, but changes his mind and throws the gun in …show more content…
the river. During his trial, Andy seems cold arrogant when he is questioned by the prosecutor, which leads the judge to believe that Andy is guilty. The judge doesn’t believe Andy shows any remorse whatsoever, and sentences him to fifty years in prison. Andy proclaims his innocence throughout the movie, but eventually tells Red that he didn’t pull the trigger but he might as well had, because he was cold and distant toward his wife, and his actions, or lack thereof, drove his wife into the arms of another man. He believes that if he had been a better husband, she wouldn’t have cheated, and she would still be alive today. Although he believes he deserves punishment, he does not believe that the punishment he receives fits the crime.
Not only is Andy sent to prison, he is raped and beaten repeatedly by Boggs and the sisters, or “bull queers”, a gang that terrorizes prisoners through physical and sexual abuse.
Andy pretty much keeps to himself and doesn’t bother anyone, so it doesn’t seem fair that he is being harassed by other inmates. Boggs is the leader of the gang that bullies Andy, and he is the person that instigates the conflicts. It seems as if Boggs and the bull queers are going to torment Andy throughout the entire movie, and the villains are going to win after all. This goes on for two years, until Andy is able to get on the good side of Hadley, the foreman of the prison guards by helping him hide an inheritance of $35,000 from the IRS. Andy becomes a financial advisor to Hadley and the other guards at Shawshank and earns their respect. The rapes and beatings continue until one day Boggs and the bull queers attack Andy, and because he fights back, they nearly beat him to death. Seeking revenge for Andy, who has helped them tremendously, Hadley and the other guards beat Boggs in his cell until he is paralyzed and has to live out the rest of his days in a minimum security prison in a wheelchair. Boggs continuously tormented Andy by abusing him physically and sexually. He got away with it for two years, but eventually his bad deeds got the best of
him.
Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding is the man in Shawshank prison who “can get it for you”. He is a very important inmate at Shawshank, because if you need something that can’t be supplied by the prison, he can get it for you. He is serving a life sentence, and is considered the “only guilty man in Shawshank”, because he pleads guilty to killing his wife for insurance money. Red is one of those characters in the story that understand the concept of paying for the crimes you commit. He is truly remorseful for the murder, yet this does not come across when he goes in front of the parole board. Each time he is up for parole, he tells the parole board what he thinks they want to hear. They assume he lacks sincerity, and because of this his parole repeatedly denied. After Andy escapes from prison and thirty years into his own sentence, Red finally gets the courage to tell the parole board exactly what he thinks about whether he has been rehabilitated without sugar coating his statement. It is only then that the parole board allows him to be released from prison. Red’s story shows that even if you commit the most horrible crime, if you are truly remorseful and willing to pay for the crimes you commit, it will not go unnoticed and you can make up for it in the end.
The movie Shawshank Redemption gives us many views on the theme “crime doesn’t pay. It shows us how karma eventually catches up with you and ultimately you will pay the price if you purposely torment others and commit crimes for your own benefit. Occasionally the good deeds will outweigh the bad and cancel each other out. An example of this is when Andy escapes from the prison. He steals Warden Norton’s shoes and suit, and then removes all the money he has been embezzling for the warden from all of the bank accounts he has set up and escapes to Mexico. In the end, Andy is redeemed after spending nineteen years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Prior to escaping, Andy not only assists the prison guards, but also the prisoners by educating them, building a new library, and introducing them to new music. His good deeds while in prison seem to be somewhat of repentance for the poor treatment of his wife, which he believes ultimately, causes her death.