A Lesson from Shawshank

Andy Dufresne. He is an iconic character.

With circumstantial evidence, Andy Dufresne was sent to prison for a murder he did not commit. He was tortured there. He was taken advantage of due to his talent and refusal to bow down.

He hatched a plan to escape which began with buying his chain gang, roof crew drinks while working. The mistreatment continued, but Andy was smart. He played the long game.

He locked himself in the warden’s office at Shawshank prison and played opera music over the loudspeakers. It was an outright act of defiance. He refused to have his spirit broken.

It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free. ~ Shawshank Redemption, a film adaptation by Stephen King/Frank Darabont (1994)

And in his final act of defiance, Andy Dufresne(Tim Robbins) had documented all of the wrong doing that Warden Norton had done. He created a fake persona while laundering the Warden’s money. He used that persona to steal all of that money after he escaped.

Mr. Stevens visited nearly a dozen banks in the Portland area that morning. All told, he blew town with more than $370,000 of Warden Norton’s money. Severance pay for nineteen years. ~ Shawshank Redemption, a film adaptation by Stephen King/Frank Darabont (1994)

I really enjoyed discussing great literature(rich text) with my students. Now, I admittedly didn’t discuss Shawshank with them as the content was too mature for elementary schoolers. However, university students(maybe even older high schoolers) would greatly benefit from the discussions.