Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption Themes

It's not surprising that a story that takes place in a prison features quite a bit of talk about freedom—or, more specifically, the lack of freedom. King writes about freedom as a dream in Shawsh...

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption centers on a lengthy friendship between Andy and Red, yet it doesn't go into a whole lot of details. This is a strong, silent friendship, with a lot of ma...

Pin-up girls always have a secret. You don't know what they're thinking as they smile at you from the other side of that sheet, and we're probably never going to find out. That makes Rita Hayworth...

Let's face it: Any story set in a prison will inevitably explore the nature of suffering in some way or another. We get plenty of prison brutality in Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption: Gua...

At the end of the day, Shawshank is all about hope (which isn't quite the same thing as freedom.). Hope is what gets the prisoners in Shawshank through each day, many times as a direct result of An...

Red tells us fairly early that Andy didn't commit the crime he's been jailed for, which is confirmed years later when Tommy Williams shows up. Yet, Andy still gets to rot away in his cell for thirt...

People change throughout Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. They become institutionalized. They grow more corrupt. They get old and scared, old and brave, or just plain old. Either way, th...

Andy survives and escapes because he outthinks everyone else. He's smarter than his jailers, even though they think they're smarter than him. It's a battle of wills to see who triumphs, but we're b...