Original from: We are all souls waiting for salvation in Shawshankri
01
"You have come to the right place, everyone here is innocent."
Red said to Andy with a smile.
The banker who murdered his wife was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering his wife and her lover.
Despite being imprisoned in this prison called Shawshank, he still strongly denied it.
The prisoners were tried and found guilty, and they were put in jail.
Here, reborn as a good person can go out.
Prison is a place to discipline them and a place to redeem them.
But if they want real salvation, the premise is that they have to confess their guilt.
In the Catholic teachings, based on the degree of violation of love, the evil deeds of human beings are attributed to the seven sins: arrogance, jealousy, rage, laziness, greed, gluttony, and lust.
Man was born with original sin.
But the world does not think they are guilty, just like Shawshankri, the prisoners confess their innocence.
This world is undoubtedly not a huge prison. Outside the walls are freedom, happiness and love.
We are all locked up in Shawshank.
I looked at the outside world all my life, but never repented.
02
Warden Norton always holds a Bible in his hand. He admonishes new prisoners, "Put your faith to God, and hand over your fate to me."
In Shawshank, he has absolute authority, as if he is the incarnation of a god, to teach these evil people.
As he once said to Andy, his favorite sentence in the Bible is this, "I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you will not walk in the darkness. I must follow the light of life."
But what was hidden in his exquisite suit was polite.
He relied on these prisoners to obtain a sum of black money.
Relying on Andy again, laundered this sum of black money.
He considers himself the Lord, and he writes the fate of these prisoners.
Therefore, when Andy found the witness, Tommy, who could clean up his charges, Norton was afraid of corruption and could not accept the inflow of black money from then on.
He was furious and asked the captain of the guard Hailey to shoot Tommy on the charge of attempting to escape from prison.
The black ledger was hidden in the safe behind his hanging picture with "The Lord's Judgment Coming Soon".
He was proud and arrogant. He never knew that he had already committed the most serious crime in the Seven Sins-arrogance.
He is cruel, abuses power, and claims to be a god, but he is not a god after all.
In Shawshank, he only judges others, but never examines his own heart.
Right blinded his heart, money blinded his eyes, sinking deeper and deeper.
This arrogance eventually swept him back, the Lord's judgment came quickly, and Shawshank became his dying place.
03
Andy is special.
This was something Red discovered when he first arrived at Shawshank, "His pace and conversation are simply out of the ordinary. He is like walking in the park, carefree, as if wearing an invisible cloak."
Andy is really different.
One of the important reasons why this movie is great is that the character Andy it portrays is great in itself.
He was determined and spent almost 20 years digging a tunnel to freedom.
Many people were finally successfully escaped by Andy. After climbing through the five hundred yards of dirty and smelly sewage pipes, the scene of embracing freedom again in the thunderstorm was moved to tears.
I was deeply shocked by his careless words.
In order to expand the prison library, he knew that it was impossible to write a letter to the state legislature every week to apply for funding. He wrote for six consecutive years, and finally received a sponsorship of $200 and donations of some old books.
He laughed and said, "I only wrote for six years."
Andy's persistence is indeed admirable, but what is even more frightening is that he has never received any feedback for his demands.
He doesn't need victory and success to give himself satisfaction and motivation, he just does it inertially, and any gain seems to be a surprise.
From then on, he began to send two letters a week, and finally the State Assembly decided to give the Shawshank Library $500 a year so that Andy could seal the pen.
The strong will save themselves, and the saints will help others.
Compared to wearing the cloak of God, with the warden Norton of evil Satan inside, Andy is more like the incarnation of God.
He came to Shawshank to suffer, meaning to redeem everyone's hearts.
He risked his life and relied on his banker's experience to recommend himself to fill out the tax form for the guard captain Haili for free.
Based on this, he won one person and three bottles of cold beer for his partners.
"The sun shines on our shoulders, like free people, as if we are repairing our own roof, and we are as comfortable as the creators." Red and his friends were drinking beer. At this moment, it seemed that they realized the long-lost freedom.
And Andy, sitting alone in the shade, with a strange smile on his lips, quietly watching them enjoy the ease.
He found a record among the old objects donated by the state assembly, risking being imprisoned, and releasing the music, so that the entire prison people could hear the wonderful classical music.
Red said that he played the harmonica when he was young, but now he's out of interest and doesn't make sense in prison.
Andy said, "It's only here that it makes sense. Music will not forget. There are some things in the world that can't be closed by stone walls. In people's hearts, there are things that they can't control, which belong to you completely."
He expanded the library in the prison, contacted reading clubs, charity organizations, and bought old books on a per capita basis.
More and more prisoners are reading, reading newspapers, and listening to music here.
He taught prisoners to read and helped them get a high school diploma.
When people have the least freedom and the least respect, Andy constantly finds the meaning of survival for them. This is what he did in his 19-year prison life.
When Tommy appeared and could be used as a witness to wash away his charges, he saw the light of rebirth.
But soon, this beam of light was extinguished by Warden Norton.
Norton ordered Haley to shoot Tommy. No one in this world can prove that Andy is innocent.
After 19 years of unjust life, will he continue to spend the rest of his life in prison?
After being held in solitary confinement for 2 months, he wanted to understand many things.
"My wife said I was a difficult person to understand, like a combined book, complaining like this all day long. She is very beautiful, God, I love her so much, but I don't know how to express it."
"Yes, I killed her. Although I didn't shoot her, I caused her to leave me. She died because of me."
Andy said this to Red, more like a confession.
Red comforted him and said, "But you are not a murderer, maybe not a good husband, you can regret it, but you are not guilty."
Andy looked like a saint, his words and deeds were vaguely divine, but he was still just a mortal.
Shawshankli's Andy looked so restrained and calm, but he had seven emotions and was born with original sin.
After learning that his wife was cheating, mingling with the golf coach, and divorcing himself, he couldn't help being furious.
He was so drunk that he loaded the bullet into the gun.
Although he did not kill in the end, the bullets and wine bottle fragments scattered on the ground were covered with his fingerprints, and he was unable to explain clearly.
From the moment he stepped into Shawshank, he never confessed his crime.
But nineteen years later, he suddenly realized that it was not I who shot her, but I killed her.
He had already dug the tunnel to freedom, and he was waiting.
Waiting for this moment, "I didn't kill my wife and her lover. My mistakes have been paid."
He used nineteen years to redeem himself.
No one can shut him up unless he restrains himself.
At this moment nineteen years later, he finally let go of his hatred and liberated himself.
He knew that it was time to leave.
04
Andy once asked Red why he was called by this name.
Red only responded lightly, probably because I am Irish.
Red is the first three letters of the English word Redemption.
In fact, he is the real protagonist of this movie, and he represents most of our ordinary people.
When Andy first joined Shawshank, Red had been here for 20 years.
He is considered the old fried dough stick here. Apart from no freedom, his life in prison is pretty good, at least he won't be bullied.
He has a group of friends and a little skill, and Shawshankri’s people use him to buy things outside.
Such a person has spent 20 years in jail, and he has no signs of hostility at all.
But like most of us, he committed the crime of "laziness" .
This kind of laziness does not refer to physical laziness, but cowardice, self-confidence, dissatisfaction with the current situation but still comfortable with the status quo, and step by step toward an inert life without any commitment.
Freedom means responsibility. Because of this, although we all yearn for and pursue freedom, in fact, we all fear freedom.
He said to Andy, "Hope is a dangerous thing, hope can drive people crazy, hope is useless, you better accept your fate."
Because there is no hope, there will be no disappointment.
Because there is a high probability that you will not get it, you can completely deny it in your heart. In this way, you can comfortably refrain from making any efforts and changes.
The old Brook was released on parole. After fifty years in prison, he could not adapt to the outside world and finally chose to end his life.
Red said, "Prison is a strange place. At first you hate it, then you get used to it, and later, you can't live without it. This is institutionalization."
It is never just prisons that surround and trap people.
When Red was imprisoned for 30 years, his application for parole was rejected again, and Andy gave him a gift, a harmonica.
He hoped that when Red walked out of Shawshank one day, he would not follow Brooke's old path.
He hopes that this harmonica will give him strength.
After the lights were turned off at night, Red repeatedly stroked the harmonica and put it to his mouth, but in the end it didn't sound.
Later, Andy succeeded in breaking out of prison, and later, after Red had served 40 years in prison, he finally got a chance to be released on parole.
After 40 years in Shawshank, he has finally gone out.
But like Brooke, he couldn't adapt to life outside, and he also wanted to commit suicide.
Even after leaving the prison, in fact, he was imprisoned by Shawshank all the time.
He didn't die in the end because he still kept the agreement with Andy in his heart.
He bought a compass, drove to Buxton, found the big tree, and dug out what Andy left him under the tree.
It was some money and a letter from Andy to him:
"Since you have walked so far, just go a little further, you still remember the name of that place, don't you?"
"Remember, Red, it's a good thing to have hope, maybe it's the best in the world, and good things never die."
He violated the parole regulations, went out of town without permission, bought a ticket, and embarked on an unknown road.
But this time, he was no longer afraid.
"Either be busy with survival, or rush to die."
"I'm so excited that I can't stop thinking, free people will be so excited, free people embarking on an unknown journey."
"I hope to cross the border successfully. I hope to shake hands with my old friends. I hope that the Pacific Ocean is as blue as a dream."
At this moment, he is no longer afraid of the unknown, only longing for the good.
At this moment, he broke free from the shackles in his heart.
At this moment, he finally walked out of Shawshank.
05
There is a classic line in the movie: "There is a kind of bird that can't be shut down, and every feather of it is sprinkled with the brilliance of freedom."
What does freedom surprise people?
Each of us is more or less tested by that arrogance, jealousy, anger, laziness, greed, gluttony, and lust. They damage human spirituality, hurt ourselves, and hurt those we love.
We fight against the outside world throughout our lives. We often think that everything in the outside world robs us of our happiness and love, and we hate Shawshank who has locked us in.
But in fact, it is we ourselves who have been resisting, we are pushing happiness and love away, and we always look into our own hearts only when we are completely lost.
Andy had dug the hole long ago, but he hasn't left.
Red was released on parole, he had freedom, but wanted to end his life.
Because they were unresolved at that time.
When we truly reconcile with ourselves, maybe then we will be truly free.
Otherwise, it is nothing more than escaped from a cage and entered into a larger cage.
Just like some birds, even if they fly out of the cage, they are still bound by the sky.
View more about The Shawshank Redemption reviews
