1, the main content of this book.
The background of the novel is the United States in the 1930s. Andy, a young banker, was wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and her lover and was imprisoned. However, because of corruption in the prison, he did not rehabilitate, and suffered all kinds of mental and physical destruction in Shawshank prison. However, he was not destroyed by his ill-fated fate. After more than 20 years of unremitting excavation, he finally climbed out of the 500-yard-long sewage pipe and regained his freedom on the Mexican coast.
2. A few words worth pondering
Everyone is his own god. If you give up on yourself, who will save you? Everyone is busy, some are busy living, some are busy dying. You are busy pursuing fame and fortune, and you are busy with daily necessities. Stop and think: Is your brain institutionalized? Where is your God?
In some parts of the world, stone walls can't be closed. In people's hearts, there are some things that they can't control, which belong to you completely.
Life boils down to a simple choice: get busy living or get busy dying.
Hope is good, maybe the best in the world, and good things never die.
One day, you will say something that makes you sad with a smile.
In the story, Andy has adapted to the institutionalized life, but he has never stopped longing for freedom, which urges him to move forward towards his hopes and goals.
In daily life, there will be many things that make you very helpless, but don't give up on yourself. Many things are not done overnight. Only by not giving up hope, maintaining perseverance and perseverance, being down-to-earth and working hard for the goal can we have a chance to succeed.
Thank you for your question. Let me give you my opinion. Please forgive me if there is any mistake!
Life is indomitable and fearless, so is Andy, the hero in The Shawshank Redemption.
Andy's pursuit of freedom and hope is the most admirable. For him, even a moment of spiritual freedom is very precious. To this end, he made his prisoners drink cold beer that was impossible to drink. He insisted on carving stones, and even after he went to prison, he didn't give up interest; In order to relive the beauty of music, he violated prison regulations and was held in solitary confinement for 2 weeks. In order to build a library, I have been writing a letter every two weeks for six years without interruption; In order to escape from prison, a tunnel was dug with a small hammer at 19. None of this reflects his pursuit of freedom. Andy is also a very clever man. He knows how to use all resources to achieve his goal. He changed everything in prison with his wisdom, and also saved many people's hearts.
Red is another important role in this film, which tells everything about Andy from his perspective. If Andy doesn't show up, maybe Rhett will follow in Bruce's footsteps. However, Andy not only saved himself, but also saved Rhett and many people in prison. The existence of Rhett is also one of the important media for Andy to finally escape from prison. The examples of Rhett and Lao Bu also make us realize the terrible institutionalization. Once a person is institutionalized, once he leaves the system, he can't live.
At the end of the movie, when two people who have been in prison for decades embrace each other and they still need to think about "freedom", we don't know whether to be thankful or sad for them at this time. ....
Just like the famous saying in the movie: Some birds won't be caged because their feathers are so beautiful. For decades, people had to put up with it. When most prisoners have long been numb and slowly lost their desire for freedom, they can still stick to Andy's original belief in his inner world, that is, the yearning for a free life. In the vast Shawshank, for a long time, only one Andy changed Shawshank's world.
Life is like a runway with no end. Even if you want to get someone by chance, don't give up on yourself. There is still hope!
This is my further understanding of life after reading the little book Redemption. Thank you!
The Shawshank Redemption is a must-see movie for everyone. See how this movie inspires and encourages people. He is the only film that I have seen five times. Now think about it. After watching this movie, he really taught us a lot, so if you understand. You will understand many things. I also learned to live. Here are some things I learned from watching The Shawshank Redemption.
1. You can't give up yourself. Andy, the hero in the movie, was wrongly sentenced to life imprisonment. For such a young and promising big banker, he undoubtedly ruined his future. If many people have the same experience as Andy, maybe they will give up on themselves. There will be no later self-salvation, so there is pain, but don't give up on yourself.
You must insist on being a man. In the movie, everyone knows that it took Andy 19 years to dig through the tunnel predicted to take 600 years. What does the fact that the tool he used is only a small axe to cut stones tell us?
3. To be a man, you must have your own ideas and dreams. Andy's words in the movie touched my heart very much. "Get busy living or get busy dying" is what Angie said when chatting with his good friend. Andy wanted to go to Mexico, but his friends advised him to stop thinking about it. This is unrealistic and impossible. But Andy didn't give up. He proved himself with facts.
We must learn to adapt to our own environment. There is a saying in the movie, "These walls are very interesting. When you first went to prison, you hated them. Then you have long been used to them and can't live without them. " Yes, we must adapt ourselves to our own environment. What's the use of complaining blindly
The most classic narration in the film comes from the original novel:
In this passage, if you only see the bondage of the system to people, you only see very superficial things.
You should be familiar with this feeling: when we left the high school where you were forced to study and entered the university where you studied freely, didn't we suddenly know how to study?
We have a strict system and an orderly process for leaving work for 8 hours. Do we feel unable to arrange our own lives?
Are you willing to keep yourself busy because you are afraid of freedom?
Ji Bolun said that freedom is the heaviest yoke of mankind.
All prisoners in Shawshank prison, like people in modern society, regard the pursuit of freedom as an illusion of freedom and a temporary respite in the cage.
Andy's pursuit of freedom is the real freedom he realized after painful self-reflection and long self-redemption, and it is guaranteed by his self-discipline, patience and wisdom.
When we look back at the film's exposition of freedom, I begin to feel that the so-called freedom is the land of hope, without which there will be no seeds of hope. Andy also said in his letter to Rhett at the end of the film, "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing in the world, and good things never die."
This is the real salvation in The Shawshank Redemption.
In fact, the film is not about how precise his layout is and how smart he is, but about the courage and patience that a person can produce in order to live freely and bring hope to others. Before going to prison, Rhett and Andy also said, "Hope is a dangerous thing, and hope can drive people crazy". Actually, life is not like this. If there is no hope, it may be just like the old man in the movie after he got out of prison. He is used to the institutionalization in prison. After he was released from prison, he had no hope and no goal in life, and finally hanged himself. How many people are institutionalized in our real life? Or is it "institutionalized"? Everyone is actually in Shawshank, but how many people are caged birds?
Review the classic movie The Shawshank Redemption tonight, and every time I watch it, I feel different:
1. Don't give up hope at any time, even if there is only a glimmer of hope, try to the end! Because only hope can create miracles!
The yearning for freedom is an unstoppable fire that burns in everyone's heart.
3. Institutionalization is a terrible thing, which makes people lazy, dependent, rigid, muddle along, and finally waste their lives.
4. cowardice and timidity imprison people's souls, but I hope it can make you feel free. The strong save themselves and the saints help others.
First you hate it, then you get used to it. After a long time, you will rely on it. This is institutionalization.
6. Some birds can't be caged. Their feathers are too bright.
7. Where there is hope, there will always be hope!
0 1, the way to salvation, all in it.
There is a detail in the movie The Shawshank Redemption that few critics talk about.
Andy and Rhett had a talk before they finally decided to escape from prison. Regarding his "accusation", Andy said:
"My wife said I was a hard person to understand, like a closed book, complaining all day. She is very beautiful. God, how much I love her. I just don't know how to express it ... "
I can imagine that a person who has spent 20 years planning to escape from prison alone, if he really lives on your pillow every day, it is really a bit scary.
After twenty years in prison, he also reflected, and Andy had a new understanding of his "charges":
"... yes, I killed her. Although I didn't shoot her, I caused her to leave me, and she died because of me. "
This passage is very important but easy to be ignored, because it talks about the theme of this film "redemption", and "redemption" is a vocabulary in the western cultural background (just like the harmony between man and nature in the eastern culture, which foreigners don't understand), which is very religious and easy to be misunderstood by us. A friend once recommended this movie to me and said, "Have you seen the movie Save Shawshank?" It's beautiful. That Shawshank guy is really awesome. "
It can be said that most of Stephen King's novels have strong religious factors. The film reinforces this feature and adds something that is not in the book-the warden first found a Bible in Andy's room, and he said a meaningful sentence: "This is the way to salvation."
This is a pun, not only that Andy's little hammer is hidden in it, but also that the whole movie is talking about the "redemption" of life.
In the eastern culture, to understand this film, we must understand the word "redemption".
02, the three meanings of redemption
Redemption is to use actions to offset and make up for sins and let yourself escape from disasters or dangers. So redemption has three basic elements: guilt-paying the price-liberation.
The first intention of redemption, combined with the film, is equivalent to us "turning over a new leaf and turning over a new leaf"-this is of course ironic.
But the "guilty" discussed in the film is far from it.
At the beginning of the film, Andy tells Rhett that he has been wronged. Rhett sarcastically says that "Shawshank" is innocent except me.
The "guilty" here is a crime in the secular sense.
And Andy later said those confessions: "Yes, I killed her, I didn't shoot her, but I drove her away from me, and my temper killed her", "Yes, someone else did it, but I was punished".
The "guilty" here is the "original sin" in the religious sense-arrogance, jealousy and rage.
There is a special thing in Christianity. Because of the betrayal of Adam and Eve, the ancestor of mankind, there are seven kinds of "original sins" in life: gluttony, greed, laziness, lust, arrogance, jealousy and rage, which are the root of all human evils and disasters, and life is a process of "redemption".
Therefore, the second meaning of "redemption" is religious, which means paying the price for the evil soul, giving it real liberation and light, and purifying its soul.
On the surface, prison is a punishment for your crimes. In fact, you are also getting rid of your "original sin".
On the surface, Andy is imprisoned, but in the religious sense of this film, prison is the most vivid embodiment of "redemption" in life.
After going to prison, Andy relied on his previous experience as a banker to help jailers and warders evade taxes and launder money. He must have done this before, but it was to satisfy his "desire" and "original sin" before, and then to "give my colleagues three bottles of beer, because outdoor work has beer just like normal work", in order to safeguard human dignity. This is a kind of "redemption".
In order to facilitate Andy to launder money for himself, the prison arranged for him to go to the library, but Andy used this opportunity to expand the scale of the library and help people who committed minor crimes master a skill, making it easier for them to get a new life after they got out of prison. This is also a kind of "redemption".
The warden used Andy to launder money for himself, which is the "original sin" of selfish desires. The price he paid for this was that Andy used his trust to escape from prison, handed him over, let him spend the rest of his life in prison, and let the warden "redeem" his "sin" and "original sin".
However, "redemption" has a third meaning, which is psychological and philosophical.
03, another "original sin" of human nature
It's not just Andy and the warden who need redemption, but everyone in Shawshank prison.
The people in The Shawshank Redemption all come because of their crimes, but this special environment in prison has inspired another "original sin" of human nature-being numb to life and losing the meaning of life.
Rhett said: Hope is a dangerous thing and the root of mental depression.
Everyone remembers the classic plot. After being released from prison, the prisoner committed suicide because he could not adapt to the outside world.
This is "salvation" in psychology and philosophy. We are free, but we are imprisoned in our own cage, surrounded by great unknown fears, and we can only look for short-lived and fleeting happiness in the limited world to numb our souls.
How did Andy get rid of numbness and realize this philosophical "redemption"?
Is prison break.
Due to the narrative rhythm, the film ignores many details of Prison Break, so that many people question the existence of bugs in the film, such as:
Why has Andy been locked in the same cell for decades without a round?
Why doesn't anyone live with him?
A small hammer can dig through the reinforced concrete wall of a prison?
These questions are clearly answered in the original novel, and there are more details. Only after reading them can you understand why Prison Break is really "redemption".
04. Great Redemption
First, let's sort out the timeline of the whole movie:
1948, Andy was imprisoned;
1950, went into the library to help the warden launder money;
1963 found the real murderer, and his conviction request was rejected by the warden;
1967, the escape route was dug, and the dialogue at the beginning of this article happened;
But he didn't escape until 1975-that's the biggest problem. Why did he wait eight years?
It all goes back to Andy's first night in prison. There is a gambling game in the film, and everyone bets that this quiet person will be the first person to put up with this terrible place.
But in fact, the banker who loves geology found something that could make him concentrate and forget the pain on the first night-studying the prison wall.
Shawshank Prison was built in 1930s, when the concrete technology was not up to standard. After so many years of wind and rain, Andy studied it and realized that the wall might have been dug through.
Of course, this doesn't mean that Andy is going to escape from prison. He has no idea what is on the other side of the wall. He just wants to find something to fight the fear at the moment.
But then, the frequent harassment of the "three sisters" made him start to consider the possibility of this plan, and he got a small hammer and a poster of a sexy star.
With his familiarity with Shawshank prison, he found that digging from that wall in a certain direction could lead to the sewage pipe and directly to the suburbs through the sewage drainage system, and a plan to escape from the prison gradually became clear in his mind.
But this bold plan was only a "spare tire" for a long time. His real hope was to find the real murderer, until the warden personally killed this hope, until one night in 1967, he suddenly dug out the passage.
But what makes Andy different from ordinary people is that the closer he is to hope, the calmer he is.
Once this escape plan is implemented, it must be completed within ten hours. There is no way out, the passage is just dug casually, and the traffic speed is very slow. What if there is a row of iron fences at the end of the sewage pipe? How can he avoid being chased?
It is precisely because of caution that Andy continued to work for 8 years after digging the passage, confirming where the sewage pipe leads, and in order to strive for a faster escape speed, he also dug the hole wider and removed obstacles.
But waiting means greater risk. What if a new prison guard who tries to show himself opens the poster and finds this great project, or suddenly moves into a new roommate, is transferred to another prison, or even is paroled?
As many skeptics say, it is actually a lucky thing that the plan has not been discovered. Andy knows this well, so he has been defending his special position in prison for many years. He has made a lot of efforts to get a separate cell and not be patrolled by guards.
Nothing is foolproof. This plan is not a BUG in the movie, but a risk you have to take when you want to do a very difficult thing in real life.
This is the most profound thing about the theme of redemption. For more than 30 years, Andy has been struggling with the negative things inspired by this dangerous environment in his heart:
At first, he had to fight against fear. He needs to do something to make himself forget this dangerous situation.
Then, in order to fight against the "willing to accept the reality", he began a greater double adventure, laundering money during the day and escaping from prison at night;
In the end, he had to struggle with his deepest fears, which came from risks beyond his control. His only way is to be cautious and cautious.
05, the shackles of freedom
The most classic narration in the film comes from the original novel:
I tried to describe what it was like to be gradually restricted by the prison system. At first, you can't stand the feeling of being trapped by four walls, then you can gradually tolerate this kind of life, and then accept this kind of life ... Then, when your body and mind get used to it, you even start to like this kind of life. There are good rules about when to eat, when to write letters and when to smoke.
In this passage, if you only see the bondage of the system to people, you only see very superficial things.
You should be familiar with this feeling: when we left the high school where you were forced to study and entered the university where you studied freely, didn't we suddenly know how to study?
We have a strict system and an orderly process for leaving work for 8 hours. Do we feel unable to arrange our own lives?
Are you willing to keep yourself busy because you are afraid of freedom?
Ji Bolun said that freedom is the heaviest yoke of mankind.
All prisoners in Shawshank prison, like people in modern society, regard the pursuit of freedom as an illusion of freedom and a temporary respite in the cage.
Andy's pursuit of freedom is the real freedom he realized after painful self-reflection and long self-redemption, and it is guaranteed by his self-discipline, patience and wisdom.
This is the real salvation in The Shawshank Redemption.
Yes, of course, but I think life is complete at the end.
The movie "The Shawshank Redemption" describes Andy, a young banker with small achievements, who is put into a prison named Shawshank on suspicion of killing his wife and her lover. Andy's life, sentenced to life imprisonment, seems to be in despair. Before long, Andy managed to get close to Rhett, a prestigious prisoner, and gradually got to know him. He used his professional knowledge to help the warden evade taxes and launder money, and at the same time, he was gradually treated with courtesy among prisoners by virtue of his association with Rhett. Andy seems to have found his own way to survive in a prison where evil and black and white are mixed. However, Andy is quietly and carefully planning this great escape. Because his desire for freedom never stopped, which prompted him to move forward towards his own hopes and goals.
Just like the classic lines in the movie.
You know some birds are not meant to be caged, and every feather of them shines with freedom.
You know, some birds are not meant to be caged, and every feather of them shines with freedom.
The heavily guarded Shawshank prison can't stop a soul's yearning for freedom. For 20 years, Andy just dug a passage with a small hammer to escape from prison.
Whenever life is at a low ebb and despair, I think revisiting The Shawshank Redemption will give people great encouragement. This is the power that movies bring, and it is also the power that I hope to bring. No matter how difficult the desperate situation is, it is impossible for the soul to be surrounded by infinite hope and yearning for freedom for a long time.
The Shawshank Redemption is not only Andy's own salvation, but also the salvation of all mankind and their hope for the future, which is in line with the public's psychological expectations. It is of great redemption significance to life.