How does a person maintain self-respect through the toughest time of their life? When a person encounters the toughest time of their life, they must make conscious decisions to uphold their self-respect, as Steven King illustrates in his novella, “‘Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption’”. The wrongly imprisoned banker, Andy, makes these conscious decisions during very critical points in the time that he is at Shawshank Prison. He manages to uphold his self-respect by fighting off the sisters, out witting the guards and winning their respect, and developing a prison library over a period of years. First, Andy preserves his self-respect by fighting or defending himself from the rape squad of Shawshank Prison known as “The Sisters”. …show more content…
He outwits them and earns their respect throughout different scenes of the novella. Becoming favored by the guards helps preserve Andy’s self-respect for several reasons. The first reason being that it makes him feel somewhat like a person again. The most prominent example of this would be when Andy steps up to head guard Byron Hadley. Hadley is having some money issues and Andy, having been a very successful banker before coming to prison, willingly steps in and advises Hadley on what he should do. This takes an ungodly amount of guts for Andy to do. Prisoners are normally advised to keep their mouths shut unless spoken to. Typically, if prisoners step over the line like this, Byron could beat them within an inch of their life. But, according to Byron’s normal standards, he handles the situation well and takes Andy’s advice. Not only does Andy give advice to Byron, but also to other guards and eventually the warden. This incident probably helps Andy preserve his self-respect because he begins to do what he loves again, advising people on how to handle their money. It probably also helps that he now knows that he has somewhat of an upper hand with the guards and that they might be more lenient with him. Red even states that he and the other prisoners saw the momentum shift when Byron decided to take Andy’s advice. Red said “‘I have talked to some of the other men who were …show more content…
This venture of his takes years to complete and loads of commitment. One reason why it may help him maintain his self-respect is because he has a project to put forth effort and determination into. Andy is so committed and determined to get the library, that he writes one letter a week to the state senate for funds. Once the senate sends him two hundred dollars to shut him up, he begins writing two letters a week until he is granted what he wants. From beginning to end, Andy turns a one room library into an expansive three-room library. Determination like this is typically only put forth by a person if they are truly passionate about something. Andy’s determination is made visible during his second interview with the warden. Andy is arguing with the warden and the warden threatens him by saying, “‘And while you’re in, think about this: if anything that’s been going on should stop, the library goes. I will make it my personal business to see that it goes back to what it was before you came here’” (King 71). Here, Andy’s determination is put on display by him simply not acting. He chooses to restrain himself and keep everything that he has worked so hard for in the prison. This determination and passion probably takes Andy’s mind off his situation and gives him a purpose to continue to live, thereby boosting his self-respect. Another reason that the library helps Andy maintain his
After reading Newjack, I clearly appreciate the difficulty, the chaos and the stress of an officers' job. I am less sure how they manage to do it, and I wonder at what cost to their sense of self it has on them. By contrast, with a few well-chosen stories, Conover humanizes individual prisoners: one who has lines from Anne Frank's diary tattooed on his back; a prisoner on the serving line who tries to sneak extra food to his friends; a young, emotionally needy prisoner grasping for attention from anyone, even an officer. As a result, the prisoners are often drawn “with more humanity” than the staff.
We were the lords of all creation. As for andy he spent that break hunkered in the shade, a strange little smile on his face, watching us drink his beer." This quote shows how little things teh prisoners get can make them happy.Another example would be when he used the hammer to escape from prison. It started when he asked Red to get him a rok hammer, which he said he would use to shape rocks. He calms Red's conscious as he tells it would take him a thousand years to break out of prison with a rosk hammer.When he received the rosk hammer he started to shape rocks as soon as he could and hidden that hole with a poster.After he had the hole big enough to crawl throught, he asked Heywood for a six-foot piece of rope.
He could have given up at any moment, but instead he decided to go for it finally coming out on the other side. The hole in the wall was no easy task, but I would be willing to bet it was more fun than crawling through a 50 inch diameter tube full of shit for about half a mile. Laying in a pile of poop would be enough to make some people call it quits, but instead of giving up, Andy crawled through the poo filled tunnel, making it to freedom. Never once did he give up hope. Luke on the other hand didn’t literally have to crawl through shit, but did go through some shit of his own. After being put in the hot box for a week due to finding out that his mother died, not for doing anything wrong, but for fear he might try something, he does try something, he try’s to run for the first time. Almost successful, the dogs end up sniffing him out, and he receives a beating due to, “a failure to communicate.” Being his first escape attempt they gave him minimal punishment. Time in the box, and a nice set of chains for his ankles. He then continues to try and run again, managing to remove his chain, he once again gets caught, this time being forced to do unnecessary labor, and then immediately receiving a deadly beating. Having everyone, including the guards, thinking that he had given up hope, he attempts to escape one last time by stealing a truck, ultimately resulting in his death. This shows how much hope Luke had, being as he died fighting for his own
The creators of this movie used several effective, and often subtle, methods to illustrate the hope found in Andy and his surroundings. Andy was always portrayed as a clean-cut and well-groomed prisoner with his shirt always buttoned and his hair always combed. This self-respect was in great contrast to the other prisoners who were portrayed as dirty, stereotypical prisoners. The common prisoners also had vocabularies and grammar that were far inferior to Andy’s. The distinctions between Andy and the common prisoners showed that Andy was different, those differences were that he had hope.
The new prisoners stand linked together with chains, scared to death, in front of the Warden. He says, " I believe in two things, discipline and the Bible. Here you"ll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord, your ass belongs to me. " That was the kind of attitude Andy would have to live with from now on, and this was just the beginning.
... work. It definitely puts things into perspective when you hear about what it must be like to live in a correctional facility. He told me that a lot of guys are brought in on five to ten year sentences and join a gang or something for protection, but end up getting themselves in trouble and adding years onto their sentence.
To Kill a Mockingbird "I simply want to tell you that there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them." – Miss Maudie The quote above states that Atticus Finch was a man who did unpleasant things, but this quote is false. Miss Maudie had every good intention when she told Jem and Scout this and her point was taken in the way she intended it to be taken by the children. Her point could have been better worded if the portion that reads "our unpleasant jobs" were replaced with "what is right." Atticus did unpleasant things only because he knew that they were the right thing to do. Miss Maudie told the children about their father in this way only to avoid saying that the rest of the town was wrong.
Although prisons have the primary objective of rehabilitation, prisoners will likely go through many other troubling emotions before reaching a point of reformation. Being ostracized from society, it is not uncommon to experience despair, depression, and hopelessness. Be that as it may, through reading various prison writings, it can be seen that inmates can find hope in the smallest things. As represented in “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminally Insane”, the author, Etheridge Knight, as well as other black inmates look up to Hard Rock, an inmate who is all but dutiful in a world where white people are placed at the top of the totem pole. However, after Hard Rock goes through a lobotomy-esque procedure, the motif
The movie Shawshank Redemption depicts the story of Andy Dufresne, who is an innocent man that is sentenced to life in prison. At Shawshank, both Andy and the viewers, witness typical prison subculture.
Do you not believe we need more compassion and tolerance in the world? Why can we not be like Atticus, Jem or Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee? These characters show great compassion and tolerance throughout the novel despite the society they live in. They have the courage to stand up for what they believe in.
How would you feel if you were a Woman that lived in the HARSH 1930’s? Women back then worked for ages and didn’t even get payed a dollar. A women’s life was very hard and some people wanted it to change. Women in the Novel “to kill a Mockingbird” were treated like this every day. Women were expected to come home and do everything like cleaning and making dinner and if they had children take care of them after they finished working. They had to make sure that dinner was made for the whole family. They had to make sure that the house was clean. Women had many responsibilities at home and when they were working. Women were expected to be a housewife and after work. Women believed they were betting treated unfairly in many different ways from how much they get payed to what they can do in the “Real
The film stars Tim Robbins as Andrew 'Andy' Dufresne and Morgan Freeman as Ellis Boyd 'Red' Redding. The film portrays Andy spending nearly two decades in Shawshank State Prison, a surreal house of correction in Maine and his friendship with Red, a fellow inmate, which gradually develops over the years. Consequently the three reasons that the director wanted to produce this movie are to reveal hope, despair and integrity. Red describes the reasons eloquently: “All I know for sure is that Andy Dufresne wasn’t much like me or anyone else I ever knew. . . . It was a kind of inner light he carried around with him.”
In previous eras, anti-Black sentiment was widely acknowledged and sometimes encouraged in the United States. Black litigants have endured a long history of racist attitudes and inequality in the criminal justice system To this day, it is impossible to determine if jurors present an unbiased trial for the defendants regardless of their racial background. Although the undercurrent of racism may continue to be present in modern juries, racial prejudice in the modern legal system is certainly less flagrant as many.
In the media, prisons have always been depicted as a horrible place. The film, The Shawshank Redemption, is a prime example that supports the media 's suggestions about prison life. In the film we are familiarized with Andy Dufresne, who is a banker that is wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and her lover. While trying to both remain discreet and find his prison identity, he assists Ellis Boyd 'Red ' Redding, a peddler, and Brooks Hatlen. In his attempt to fit into the rough prison subculture, Andy strategically starts a business relationship with the captain Captain Bryon Hadley and Samuel Norton. The film gives an insider 's look at various aspects of prison life. These aspects include prison culture; explicitly, guard subculture and inmate subculture.
People are scared to help him because they think once they tell the cops the guardians will find them and hurt them. "He‟s a Royal. We help him, and the Guardians will be after us." Whenever one of the strangers think about helping Andy they see the royals then rethink about actually helping him. Another reason the strangers wouldn't want to help him is because they think the guardians will found out and be after them. The couple doesn't want to get involved with the gangs because they think they might get killed getting involve with the gangs. Andy tried his hardest not to be remembered as a royal but as soon as the cop seen Andy's royal jacket the cop immediately wrote this. "He took out his black pad. He opened it to a blank page. “! Royal,” he said." Even though Laura was telling the cop Andy's name it seemed like he was just ignoring her and writing down royal. Andy tried with all his effort to not to remembered as just a royal. Andy cared about this so much he tried to take his royal jacket off while he was bleeding so this caused him a lot of pain from doing