Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.

“Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” When Andy Dufresne puts it in such a quiet way, my heart ache because of it. Have you ever felt that way about hope? Hope is the only thing in the wild world not carved out of gray stone. Hope is a small place inside of us anyone can never lock away. That is what I've learnt from an excellent movie The Shawshank Redemption.

The story begins in 1947, when Andy Dufresne, a city banker, is wrongfully convicted of his wife and her lover. He is sent to Shawshank prison and receives a double life sentence for the crime. In shawshank, Andy forms an extraordinary friendship with Red , a man who knows how to get things from the outside. Andy gets a 5 inches long rockhammer and a huge poster from Red, by which he secretly puts his pipedream into practice. After 20 years digging, Andy tunnels through the prison wall. Then he crawls 500 yards through the sewer and gets out into a ditch near the field beyond the ground of Shawshank, with no equipment, no one knows.

On the first viewing, it's the story of Andy and his struggle to maintain hope despite his circumstances. However, this is really a movie about Red and his struggle to find meaning and purpose. It seems that we are more or less similar with Red, because we've got used to the gray walls around us, which stand for routine, and then more routine. If one day, these walls dessolve away, we'll be afraid instead of free. We're afraid of not being ruled? That sounds ridiculous, but we actually are! Fortunately, when Red is faced with the same situation as we are, because of Andy, he can find a different path—the path of freedom that is lit by hope.

Sometimes, we feel many things have let us down and don't hope for the good anymore. But I have to say, suffering is not always a bad thing. Suffering produces perseverance, character, and character, hope. If we can see hope through all the hardship, nothing's gonna stop us marching towards victory!

Hope is the chief happiness the world affords. Hope encourages people to keep fighting for dreams, freedom and dignity. Hope helps people to appreciate the beauty of life. “He once is born , that is die.” Everyone is the same. The only difference is whether you get a busy living or a busy dying. Remember we aren't the birds that meant to be caged, when we spread our wings and fly away, we' ll appreciate the trembling of the heart, the singing of the mind, the flying of the soul and the hope to be free.

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