Shawshank Redemption
Writing to a Dramatic Purpose
by Bill Johnson

Shawshank Redemption is a film that points out once again a fundamental truth of storytelling. That by clearly setting out and writing a story around a dramatic issue like redemption, the storyteller sets in motion both a plot -- what the main character must do to gain redemption -- and a deeper story issue – whether adversity can lead to redemption.

By potently and vividly resolving and fulfilling its promise, the story offers a vivid story journey around the transforming power of adversity.

The story begins with its title, which suggests the story's promise. The title, then, is written around setting out the point of the story, not hiding it. By quickly setting out the story's promise, the storyteller can begin developing drama over the story's outcome. Will the main character here gain redemption? To delay the presentation of this issue risks weakening the story to create a distant plot revelation.

Music lyrics, 'If I didn't care... would I feel this way. If this isn't love, then why do I thrill."

This song is a set up for an introduction to the main character, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), and his inner feelings. The lyrics are ironic when we discover his inability to express his feelings, and the repercussions of that failure. Knowing the situation the main character confronts as the story opens, the storyteller choose a song that makes a pointed reference about him. The song and its lyrics are an integral part of the story, just as every element of a well-told story has a discernible purpose. Writers weaken a story when they try and construct it from details that only have a vague association with the dramatic context of the story.

Next we come up on street lights; a quiet night. Another contrast to what will soon be happening.

We move into car, a man listening to the same song that opens the story. Who is he? Andy. What's he doing? The questions arise naturally.

He puts something in his lap. A gun. He loads bullets into it, drinks. He needs courage. Question, courage to do what? The questions here multiply. The song, coupled with the gun and drinking, suggests Andy is tormented by his feelings and is readying himself to do something about them. As a character, he is dramatically ripe. Ready to act as the story opens, not just thinking about taking action. If he were still thinking about acting, he would be a static character no matter how dramatic the situation around him.

Cut to Andy being asked a question at a trial about his conversation with his wife; that his wife asked for a divorce. He was very distraught at the time, but as he testifies, he appears calm, cool.

His wife, it comes out, was having an affair with golf pro. Cut between Andy in car and the trial, where he appears cool, unfeeling.

Andy calmly insists he didn't kill wife and her golf-pro lover, but the DA insists he was on the scene, had a gun. That the gun he insists he threw in the river was never found.

Is he innocent?

We see Andy get out of car with gun. Walk toward house.

DA talks about people being shot eight times. So gun had to be reloaded. A crime of passion.

We see Andy's wife and golf pro making passionate love.

Judge sentences Andy to life in prison, consecutive terms.

Cut to bars sliding open, a man entering a room. Andy? No, it's Red (Morgan Freeman) in for parole hearing. He's asked if he's rehabilitated. He's very agreeable, says that he's "a changed man. No longer a danger to society."

Cut to: 'Rejected' being stamped on his parole form. The scene gets right to the point. No one buys that Red is rehabilitated.

He returns to the prison yard at Shawshank prison. This naturally frames a question, will Red ever change? Ever be ready for parole?

Red walks up to see view in yard.

Through a voiceover, Red explains he is a con who can get anything for anybody. "A regular Sears and Roebuck."

We hear siren, see prison van approach. Question, who's in the van? By withholding that information, simply showing the approach of the van and the fuss about its arrival, a small revelation is set up about who's in the van.

We come up over roof to 'see' prison. This visual image is suggestive that we're going to be allowed a full view of this world. Even the camera work here, then, speaks to a dramatic purpose in the story, becomes another element in how the story is presented.

Men in the prison yard move with purpose toward the van and the arrival of new prisoners. Why are the men excited? The audience is set up to anticipate something.

Guards and cons alike await new prisoners, lining up to see them.

Door to van opens; guard comes out, then others. Finally, Andy comes out.

It quickly comes out that the cons like to torment the new arrivals.

Andy is shy, wears a suit. He's really out of place in this new, harsh world. By showing how out of place he is, a question is naturally generated: can he survive here? What will happen to him in the coming days? Minutes?

Red takes bets on which new man will get beat up first, will be broken.

Red, "I didn't think much of Andy... my first impression of the man."

The story will change the impression of Andy for Red and the audience. Red is set up here as our guide in this story, a guide to the world within the walls of Shawshank.

Andy looks up at the formidable walls as he enters prison. This is to let the audience more fully experience this moment. It also becomes a sly commentary on the inner fortress walls Andy must surmount.

We meet Captain of guards and the Warden. Rules are spelled out for the new prisoners.

Rule # 1. No blasphemy.

One guy wants to know when they'll eat. Captain cusses him out and hits him while Warden looks on. The audience is being shown that Andy has entered the abyss.

Naked men are hosed, deloused.

Men are taken into prison naked and put into cells. It's meant to degrade, and the moments are set up for the audience to experience, to feel the degradation of these men.

Red narrates what it all means, how many men break down and cry their first night. The question, "Who's it going to be?" Who's going to cry first? That's what the betting in the yard was about. Red has bet that Andy will break first.

Red narrates, remembering his first night in prison. Red, the "boys always go fishing with" new men. The cons bait the new men.

Fat man, a new prisoner, cries out plaintively, "I don't belong here."

Cons jeer him.

Fat Man, "I want my mother." Con, "I had your mother; she wasn't that great."

The fat man can't stop pleading that he shouldn't be there. A con in a cell quietly pleads with the fat man to shut up. The Captain brings the fat man out and beats him senseless with a club.

We're shown the brutal immorality here. That the real evil is with those running the prison.

Red narrates that he lost cigarettes because Andy didn't break that night, that he never made a sound. This is another step in our journey to take in the full measure of Andy as a man.

Morning, men walk along cell block and into mess hall.

Where will Andy sit? What will others do? He sits by himself. Picks maggot out of his food. An old man asks for the maggot. Andy gives it to him. Will the old man eat it? It turns out the old man has a baby bird in his coat.

The bird becomes a continuing character in the story, not just a momentary effect in this one scene. Great stories layer their effects, build on them, develop them, deepen their impact, in small moments and large.

A happy con comes in; he's won cigarettes from the bet about who would break first.

Andy listens to conversation, that fat men received no medical treatment. Andy asks his name.

Con, "What the fuck do you care? Doesn't matter what his name was, he's dead."

Andy is listless in shower. Another man asks, "Anybody get to you yet?" He's offering protection for sex. Question, how will this turn out?

Red narrates that it took Andy a month to speak to someone... and that someone turns out to be Red.

Andy still maintains his innocence.

Red, "Rumor has it you're a cold fish... think your shit smells sweeter than most."

Andy asks Red to get him a rock hammer.

Red thinks he might want it for a weapon. Boggs (the prisoner who spoke to Andy in the shower), wants Andy for sex, according to Red. Red tells Andy to grow eyes in the back of his head. Andy says he won't use the rock hammer as a weapon.

Will Red get it for him? They agree on ten dollars as the price.

Set up of question, pay off. One way to draw an audience through a story is to raise a small question at the beginning of the scene and resolve it by the end of the scene. Questions can also be set up to play across scenes, or through the body of the story, its plot, character goals.

Red tells Andy the rules. If he's caught with the rock hammer and mentions Red, he'll never get him another thing... gum, anything.

Red, "He strolled... like he had on an invisible coat that shielded him." Question, will he be able to keep that shield?

Cut to laundry room. Black man sticks something in shirt. It gets to Red. He gets rock hammer and realizes it can't be used to escape or as a weapon. Or so it appears.

Old man who fed maggot to baby bird delivers book with hammer to Andy.

Andy sent to basement area. Other men surround him. He's beaten by three men, including Boggs, and, we assume, raped. We have an answer to that question of what would happen to Andy.

Red, "Prison is no fairy tale world."

Red talks about Andy showing up with fresh bruises. That sometimes he fought them off. Red continues that this went on for two years, that it might have eventually broke Andy, but something happened.

Question, what?

Cut to Warden talking about new license plate factory needing volunteers. Andy and others volunteer.

Red smiles that he's called because of bribe. Andy is on detail as well.

While cons works, Captain talks about how a brother died with money and he's only getting $35,000, and the government will take most of that in taxes.

Andy looks off at something. What?

Andy walks toward the Captain. This sets off a reaction by guards. Will Andy be killed. What's he doing? He tells Captain he can keep money if he trusts his wife enough to give her the money. The Captain is outraged. Will Captain kill him? Andy, an ex-banker, explains that he can set it up so the Captain gets to keep most of the money if he puts it in his wife's name, and he wants three beers each for the work crew for the advice.

Captain goes along.

Cons get to drink ice cold beers.

Red, "We felt like free men."

The audience gets to experience this great victory with the men.

Andy has a strange smile. Big question, what's he smiling about? He refuses beer. Red believes Andy did that to feel 'normal' again.

Andy plays chess; Red hates the game. This comments on how Andy will eventually get out of prison, one move at a time, in a game that takes 20 years to play.

Andy needs rocks to carve chessmen.

Red comments that they are becoming 'friends.' Andy wants to know why he's there. Red's in for murder, the 'only guilty man in Shawshank.' Red knows who he is. Question, who is Andy?

Andy gets up. He carves something into wall with rock hammer. Question, what?

Cons watch movie.

Andy asks Red to get him Rita Hayworth. A poster? What?

Andy leaves. He's attacked again in the movie projection room.

Man takes out knife. He threatens Andy for oral sex. Andy refuses and is beaten senseless.

But now the Captain has something invested in protecting Andy. Boggs, the con who's been raping Andy, spends a month in solitary for the latest attack on Andy. When he returns to his cell, the Captain waits for him. He beats him into a wheelchair as a broken cripple. The Captain is sending a message that Andy works for him now, and he won't tolerate him being abused.

Cons decide Andy is someone to respect. They go out to get him rocks for chessmen.

Man finds a rock, but not right one. It's petrified horse shit.

Red gets in a shipment. It includes a poster of Rita Hayworth.

We now see walls of Andy's cell. It's covered with pictures.

Con mops. Guards come along for sweep of cells.

Captain, to Andy, on your feet. They trash his room, possessions.

Warden comes in. He's pleased that Andy reads Bible. Andy's favorite passage about being ready for Master's appearance.

Captain finds chessmen.

Warden disapproves of Rita poster, but he allows it.

Warden, "Salvation lies within." True words. It lies within Andy.

Andy then is taken to see Warden. Warden asks him if he wants to work in Laundry.

Andy is reassigned to Library. We see raven who was baby bird when first met, with Brooks, the old man in the prison.

Brooks doesn't know why Andy has been assigned to be his assistant.

Captain brings in guard who needs help with Trust. Andy, here, is not a con; he's a man. He sits across from guard as his advisor.

Brooks relates in mess hall how guard shook Andy's hand. Andy wants to get new books. Can he get funds? Another question that will play out across several scenes.

Andy asks Warden for funds. Warden says he'll mail letters. Will he? What will the letters accomplish?

Andy continues doing financial services. Does tax returns...first year, half the guards, then everyone, then guards from other prisons.

Red narrates Andy needed staff... which turns out to be Red.

Red, "And still, he kept sending those letters."

One day Brooks the old man goes crazy, pulls a knife. Andy tries to talk him out of killing Heywood.

Then it comes out that Brooks must kill someone or be released.

Red tells the others why Brooks wants to stay in prison, that it's the only life he knows. Some cons don't believe it.

"These walls are funny. First you hate them. Then you get used to them. Enough time passes, you depend on them."

"They sent you here for life... that's the part they take."

Will this happen to Andy?

Brooks tells 'Jake' the raven he's free.

Brooks leaves prison. He doesn't know what to do.

Brooks on bus, on city street. Sad music plays.

Brooks, narration, "I can't believe how fast things move on the outside." Cars are everywhere; everyone hurries.

He gets room in a half way house and job as bag boy. He worries about Jake. He thinks about robbing store, but feels he's too old. He's afraid all the time. He decides to leave. But where will he go? What will he do? He does something with knife in ceiling of his room. Question, what? Brooks then hangs himself.

We pick up his thoughts via his last letter being read by Andy.

Andy finally gets books. They are addressed to him.

He also gets a check for $200 to buy more books. His letters have brought in a donation. A guard smiles in spite of himself. Guard, "Good for you, Andy."

Andy, "It only took six years."

Andy has a moment of joy. The man who didn't appear to feel is learning to openly feel. It's a significant advance for the story. The moment is presented in a way the audience can fully experience it with Andy. He has taken another, inner step toward redemption.

Andy finds record, opera. He plays it.

He picks up key. Locks himself in room.

He plays opera music so everyone in prison can hear it.

Moment becomes transcendent as prisoners listen to music.

Everyone is shocked, everyone.

Everyone stops what they are doing.

Red narrates joy of moment, even though no one understood opera music. "Every last man at Shawshank felt free."

Andy is sharing his new feeling of freedom, sharing it with the other cons and the story's audience.

Warden demands Andy open door, demands Andy turn off music. Andy turns it up.

Captain breaks in after telling Andy, "You're mine, now."

Andy gets two weeks in solitary, in 'the hole.'

Andy tells others he took music with him in his head into the hole. He's teaching the others to transcend, sharing the experience with the audience by talking about it.

Andy, "That there are places... they can't touch."

Red, "Hope... is a dangerous thing... can drive a man insane."

The story is now on a new track.

Doors open into parole hearing. For who? Red again.

Red runs through his same routine of being changed. He's more thoughtful about it now. He's been in prison for 30 years, Andy ten. Question, will Red be paroled?

No.

Andy gives Red present. Harmonica.

Men are lined up outside cells for searches. Red sends Andy a new poster. Of who? Marilyn Monroe over the grate, her dress billowing up. The poster helps the audience track the passage of time.

Red looks at harmonica. What will he do? He plays it.

Andy writes two letters a week for new books. Finally, he gets $500 for new books.

A wall comes down, a metaphor for what's happening as Andy needs more room for books, as Andy expands his inner sense of freedom.

Men label books. Dumas is Dumb-ass.

By Kennedy's assassination, library has Hank Williams records and is best prison library in country. Andy is changing what exists within the high, thick walls of the prison.

Warden proclaims rehabilitation outside prison walls; that prisoners will work outside of prison. Warden is now older. That also let's the audience naturally track time passage. The new system is meant to save money, but it allows warden/guards to skim money from different projects. Warden/guards, then, are showing themselves as the real criminals.

Warden accepts bribe to not let prisoners build highway, and Andy keeps books for Warden.

Warden has wall safe behind religious message. It's where books are kept. Andy is getting a few gray hairs now.

Andy tells Red there's a river of dirty money running through prison. Red is concerned that it will lead FBI to Andy. Question, what will come out of this? Andy explains he has created a phantom person on paper with birth certificate, driver's license, etc. to collect money. Andy, "I was an honest person. I had to come to prison to become a crook."

Andy sees that what he's doing also got library, helped prisoners get high school diplomas. He's learning all is not black or white; that to be wise is to discern the real nature of what is good and evil.

Sirens sound. We have a new kind of cons coming into the prison, young punks. Prisoners from a new generation. One is Tommy Williams. It's 1965. He gets in with Red's group. He's in for two years.

Andy suggests he should learn a new profession, based on his convictions. Andy's now an old con. And tells Tommy everyone in Shawshank is innocent. Tommy has wife and baby on outside. He asks Andy for help, but Andy calls him a loser.

Andy teaches Tommy his ABC's, teaching him to read.

Red narrates that Andy helps Tommy in part to pass time now that he's built a library.

We see chess set, a few pieces short of being complete.

Andy gets a Raquel Welch poster. We're watching time pass through posters.

Andy times Tommy taking a test. Tommy flips out because he knows he failed test.

Red tells Tommy that Andy is proud of him. Red tells Tommy Andy is in for murder. Tommy's face turns somber. What?

Tommy tells about a cell mate in a different prison, Elmo Blatch. Twitchy, strung out guy who talked all the time. He told Tommy about working at a country club. It turns out Elmo did the murders of Andy's wife and her lover. The golf pro woke up and gave Elmo a hard time, so he killed both of them.

Now we have an answer to a question that began the story, did Andy kill his wife and her lover? But now we have a deeper, more pressing question. What will come out of this?

Warden then tells Andy new con was making up the story. Will the Warden help Andy considering how much he needs Andy around?

Andy calls Warden obtuse, which upsets Warden.

Andy says if he gets out he'll never mention Warden, which sets off Warden, who puts Andy in hole for a month.

Prisoners now know Andy is innocent. He's been in prison 19 years.

Tommy gets his degree. Moment is drawn out. Red, looking at it, "Well, shit." Then guard opens hole. He tells Andy, "The kid passed. C+ average."

Andy smiles. Even in the hole, he's a free man.

Captain pulls Tommy off mopping detail to talk to Warden. But it happens in a dark cage. What will happen? What does he want from Tommy? He offers him a cigarette. "We have a situation here." (A line from Cool Hand Luke). Warden wonders what is the right thing to do. Is he being serious? Will Tommy swear before a judge and jury? Tommy says yes.

Warden looks up toward someone behind Tommy. Who? Shots ring out. Tommy is shot dead.

Door to hole opens. Warden tells Andy Tommy is dead.

Andy tells Warden to run his own scams. Warden threatens Andy will do the hardest time there is. Warden, "You'll think you've been fucked by a train."

We are seeing the face of evil. Just when it seemed Andy might gain his freedom, he's thrown deeper into the abyss. Again the progression here is natural, unforced, but what led to this moment was constructed from the beginning of the story.

Warden adds another month to Andy's time in hole because of his insolence.

Lights go out, just as they go out for Andy in this dark night of his soul. Question, will the lights ever come on for him again? For anyone in this situation?

Cut to Andy alone in yard. Is he broken? Red sits beside him.

Andy, "My wife used to say I'm a hard to know... I loved her. I just didn't know how to show it is all. I killed her, Red... I drove her away. She died because of me... the way I am."

This is a potent, deeply felt revelation.

Red, "That don't make you a murderer. Bad husband, maybe."

Andy talks about being in path of tornado. "I just didn't expect the storm would last as long as it has." He asks Red if he thinks he'll ever get out. Red assumes it will only be when he's old and crazy. Andy says that if he gets out, he'll go to Mexico, that, according to the Mexicans, the Pacific Ocean has no memory. He'll open a hotel on the beach. Story question, will he get this? We now want Andy to have his dreams. He says he could use Red's help if he gets such a place. Red doesn't think he could make it on the outside. That he's an institutional man.

Red tells him to let go of his pipe dreams.

Andy asks a favor if Red gets out. That he go to a hay field and an oak tree where he asked his wife to marry him. "Promise me, Red, if you ever get out, find a rock ... there's something buried under it." Andy won't say what.

We now have a new plot element to track the advance of the story.

The other cons are worried about Andy. He asked someone for six feet of rope. Is he going to hang himself like Brooks?

Cut to Andy working on Warden's books.

Warden has him doing his laundry, shining his shoes. Then Warden tells Andy it's good having him back.

Is Andy broken? He takes out shoes and shines them. The shoes are a significant part of the story's plot now, but that's not apparent at the moment. Every moment of this story plays across different levels, has different meanings according to different contexts.

Andy walks along cell block. Red watches him. He sits alone in his cell.

Red, "I've had some long nights in the stir." He's worried about Andy, that wondering if Andy would kill himself was the longest night of his life.

Will Andy come out of his cell?

No. Is he dead? Guard looks in cell. "Oh, my Holy God." What does he see? We don't know. We here sirens. Andy probably took Warden's shoes.

Guards look at a checklist. He was checked in at lights out. Warden is livid. He brings in Red. He wants to know what Andy told Red.

Warden taunts Welch poster. Warden throws chess piece that goes through poster. But it's supposed to be a solid wall. He rips it down. Andy has escaped through hole in wall hidden by poster.

Cop cars go down road.

Red, "In 1966 Andy Defrense escaped Shawshank Prison." He'd worn down his rock hammer in twenty years of use.

Flashback to Andy first realizing he could get through wall.

Red, "All it takes is pressure and time."

Shot of Andy dropping rocks in prison yard.

Back to last night with Warden. Andy sets out a duplicate set of books and takes real books with him. We see him buffing shoes, looking at Warden's suits. Nobody noticed Andy wearing Warden's shoes as he walked to cell block.

Andy looks at Raquel. He takes off prison clothes. He's wearing Warden's clothes. He takes his chess pieces and crawls through tunnel.

He exits into crawl space and climbs down with package hanging from his feet via rope. Andy waits for lightning, and uses thunder to cover sound of him breaking into sewer pipe. He goes through sewer pipe, crawling through raw sewage, 500 yards. Half a mile.

He runs up creek, takes off shirt and laughs in rain and raises his arms to the sky.

Cut to Warden finding hole. Andy, wearing Warden's shoes, shows up at bank and withdraws money via the phantom 'man' he created. He'll be living abroad, he tells bank official. He asks they deliver package.

What's in it?

It comes out Andy went to 12 banks and withdrew 370,000 dollars.

Then a local paper gets call.

Warden reads headlines. Hears siren, looks at wall hanging about "Judgment coming and that right soon."

He finds a bible with a note from Andy, "You were right. Salvation lay within."

He then sees hole in bible where Andy originally got rock hammer. It now looks like Warden helped Andy.

Captain is served by arrest warrant. Red, "He sobbed like a little girl when they took him away." Warden loads gun. Points it at door (will he shoot at cops), then blows off the top of head.

Red gets postcard, blank, from Mexico. He knows Andy has made it to freedom.

Red, "Andy Dufresne, who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean."

Other cons talk about Andy and laugh.

He's proved that redemption can be won in the most hellish time and place.

Red misses Andy. "Some birds just aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are too bright." But the place is drab with Andy gone. Red, "I guess I just miss my friend."

Doors open. Red goes into parole hearing. Man at table, "Please sit down." Has Red been rehabilitated. He answers honestly this time. Red, "What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did?" Red talks about his honest regret. "I look back on the way I was then. A young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him... Tell him the way things are, but I can't. That kid's long gone. This old man is all that's left. I gotta live with that. Rehabilitate is just a bullshit word... So stop wasting my time... I don't give a shit." He gets up.

They stamp form. Parole 'approved.'

Transcendent moment. A moment earned through a careful, thoughtful construction of the story's elements.

Red leaves prison, a free man because of what he's learned from Andy.

Red on bus.

Red in cheap hotel room that Brooks once stayed in. He sees words near ceiling, "Brooks was here." He gets job as bag boy at same grocery.

He asks Boss for break. Boss tells him he doesn't need to ask every time.

Red, "Forty years I've been asking for permission to piss... No way I'm gonna make it on the outside." He looks through window at guns. He wants to break parole.

"Terrible thing to live in fear... All I want is to be back where things make sense... where I won't have to afraid all the time." All that stops him is his promise to Andy.

Cut to Red in old field. He walks down field toward oak tree, taking off coat. What will he find at the end of this road? What will we find?

He finds tree in field, then rock wall. Then rock that is out of place. Behind it he finds box. Titanic lunch box. He opens it. Finds plastic sack. Within plastic sack is money and letter from Andy to Red, that Andy wants him to come to Mexico.

Andy, in letter, "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things... I'll be hoping this letter finds you, and finds you well. Andy."

Red leaves field. He is free now.

Red, "Get busy living, or get busy dying. For the second time in my life I'm guilty of committing a crime. Parole violation. "He's excited, the excitement of a 'free man." The audience shares his excitement.

Red, "I hope the Pacific is as blue as in my dreams... I hope."

Cut to Andy working on boat on water. He sees Red come up beach.

Pull back to allow men privacy of greeting.

Music swells.

End of one story, beginning of another.

The Shawshank Redemption is a story carefully constructed around its dramatic purpose. The full effect of this is demonstrated by the fact that nothing can be removed from this story without changing it in some way. In loosely, badly written or constructed stories, one can make wholesale changes in everything and not really affect the outcome of the story and the destination of its plot. Here, everything is finely detailed around its purpose, everything works to achieve an effect, to deepen the impact of the story.

This is also a story that earns its impact, that doesn't cheapen itself by offering an easy, feel-good path to redemption. Here, redemption is carved out of the stone walls of the prison, just as in life people must struggle to find and give meaning to their lives. Through internalizing the journey promised by this story, its viewers can experience that even the darkest abyss can be survived. That sometimes it's through surviving the abyss that we grow and discover who we really are.

©2000 Bill Johnson