Shawshank Redemption Hope Quotes

The film the Shawshank redemption directed by Frank Darabont is about a young hot shot banker who is wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and and her lover. His name was Andy Dufresne and he was handed down a double life sentence for his crime and he was sent to Shawshank prison to serve his sentence. When Andy got to prison he made a couple of friends and one of them was called Red. Red was the man on the inside who knew how to get things. Throughout his time at Shawshank prison Andy was a symbol of hope for his fellow inmates. In this film the Warden was a symbol of despair.

In this film Andy Dufresne held onto his hope throughout his time in prison because it was the one thing that was keeping him from becoming institutionalized and going crazy. An example of this in the film is when Andy gets released from the hole after two weeks of confinement for playing the music over the prisons loud speakers. When Andy sat down at the breakfast table, his friends asked him how he could survive two weeks in the hole and Andy told them

“Fear can hold you prisoner, but hope can set you free”
In this quote the director uses dialog to show us that Andy has a strong sense of hope and that he will not fall victim of institutionalization.

In this quote we can see that Andy has an idea that they can lock you away that they can not take away your spiritual freedom because they can not take away your hope.

In this film most of the prisoners are afraid of hope because they think that it will destroy them and it will drive them crazy. An example of this in the film is when Andy was talking about hope and Red dismissed this idea by saying
“Hope is a dangerous thing Andy, it can drive a man crazy in here”
This shows us that Red is afraid of hope and this also shows us how the rest of the prisoners feel about hope because they are all afraid of going

insane.

In this film Andy tries to give his fellow inmates a sense of hope because he believes that as soon as you loose your hope you are at great risk of becoming institutionalised and going crazy. An example of this in the film was in the rooftop scene. In the rooftop scene, Andy and his co-workers were given icy cold beer after they finished tarring the roof because Andy was going to help Captain Hadley with his taxes. In this scene Red says
“We sat with the sun on our shoulders, drinking our cold beer like free men, as if we could have been tarring the roof on one of our own houses, we were the lords of all creation”
This quote shows us that Andy allowed his fellow inmates to feel a sense of freedom, even though it was just for a short while. By doing this Andy helped his friends to hold on to their hope that things can get better, even in prison.

In this film the director uses lighting to show good and evil, hope and despair. An example of this in the film was in the scene when Tommy was executed. In this scene Tommy was in the light representing good and hope, and the Warden and Captain Hadley were in the dark representing evil and despair. This technique was effective because there was a clear line of who was good and who was evil in the movie.

In conclusion Andy was A strong symbol of hope and he was an inspiration for his fellow inmates because he never gave up on trying to escape over the twenty years that it took him to dig the tunnel.