Shawshank Redemption
Shawshank Redemption is a brilliant movie about resilience. It depicts the effects of
prison life during along with after a prisoner’s time in jail. Andy Dufresne is sentenced to two
consecutive life terms in prison after being falsely accused of murdering his wife and her lover
and is sentenced to a tough prison, he remains there for 19 years. To keep himself occupied
Andy takes on the task of building a new library and helping the other inmates with their
education. Andy slowly gains respect from his fellow inmates and some of the guards by using
his banking skills and his education. He soon begins assisting Samuel Norton, the warden, with
his embezzlement of money. He doesn’t realize that by helping the warden that this is dwindling
his chances of ever leaving Shawshank since the warden doesn’t want to get caught. While there,
he is befriended by a fellow inmate Red, who is also serving a life sentence, and aids others by
secretly supplying inmates with cigarettes, cards, posters, and other items from outside the
prison. The prisoners gain a touch of reality beyond their isolation, especially with the
motivation of the poster of Rita Hayworth. Another character worth mentioning is Brooks, the
librarian, who committed suicide after being released because he cannot seem to find his place in
society. Placed in solitary confinement, Andy pushes himself to find freedom so he begins to
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secretly plan his escape. One fateful morning, Andy’s cell is empty and the warden finds
an escape route that Andy dug for twenty years behind his poster with a rock hammer hidden in
his bible. Andy ends up escaping to Mexico where Red will meet him when his sentence is
finally completed along with exposing the warden to the authorities.
Moving along to the psychological aspect, throughout the film, the theme of resilience is
evident with topics such as identity, motivation, and Freud’s psychoanalytic defense mechanisms
being depicted. There is a term called institutional syndrome which refers to the deficits or
disabilities in social and life skills, which develop after a person has spent a long period of time
living in places such as prisons or other remote institutions. To simply put it, individuals in
institutions may be deprived of independence along with responsibility, to the point that once
they are released they are often unable to manage the demands of a regular life, it has also been
argued that institutionalized individuals become psychologically more prone to mental health
problems. Take Brooks for example, after being in prison for nearly 60 years then being released
he commits suicide due to the overwhelming pressure/disconnect of life outside the prison.
Samuel Norton, the warden, even mentions Sigmund Freud’s idea of defense mechanisms by
“redirecting anxiety by distorting reality”. Sigmund Freud’s defense mechanisms can be
observed through this character. To reduce his anxiety Norton projects his emotions onto Andy,
trying to rationalize his actions and promote his self interest at the expense of others. Shawshank
Redemption accurately depicts the ideas of self motivation for a specific desire, one’s identity,
and using defense mechanisms to reduce anxiety.
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Individual Psychology is a theory of personality which “emphasizes on the uniqueness of
each individual and the processes in which people overcome their limitations and struggle to
reach their life goals.”. Shawshank Redemption accurately depicts human social psychology
along with resilience. Like individual psychology, another example can be taken from The
Stanford Prison experiment which attempted to show how social roles influence our behavior.
Participants given the guard role in the study quickly exhibited distressing behavior resulting in
the experiment to be terminated after six days. With that being said, the guards in Shawshank
abused their power by physically mistreating the inmates such as Andy. The warden also abused
his power by having Andy thrown in solitary confinement for months to “get his head straight”.
It should be noted studies have irreparable psychological harm that prolonged solitary can cause
yet Andy still remained strong. Serving 19 years for being falsely accused can take a toll on
one’s mental health. Tackling on top of that the physical and psychological abuse received,
Andy’s mental state should have broken but it did not. No matter what he experienced
throughout his time there he kept his head high while trying to discover who he was. The
persistence, hope, and resilience he exhibited kept his mental state as healthy as it could possibly
be in such a horrible situation. He keeps his mind occupied with tasks such as rebuilding the
library, helping inmates and the warden with embezzlement, while also carefully calculating his
escape. As Andy would say, “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”. Andy’s mental resilience
cannot be explained, it is simply who he is, he is always looking for the positive side of
everything. True resilience is being able to get back up and carry on with life regardless of what
is thrown at one’s way.
Works Cited
Alvarez, Adrian. “Solitary confinement: What the Shawshank Redemption doesn't teach
us.” Public Justice, 16 July 2013, https://www.publicjustice.net/solitary-confinementwhat-the-shawshank-redemption-doesnt-teach-us/.
Johnson, Ros. “"Shawshank Redemption": Hope and Other Themes.” Minding Therapy,
30 January 2013, https://www.mindingtherapy.com/shawshank-redemption-hope/.
“[PDF] "red" the Shawshank Redemption Institutional Syndrome.” Semantic Scholar,
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/%22red%22-the-Shawshank-RedemptionInstitutional/7a2a49f0cb18eccde091f6f8552968c40c4bc88d.
“Psychology in Films: Shawshank Redemption Personality Theory.” UK Essays, 12
March 2020, https://www.ukessays.com/essays/psychology/psychology-filmsshawshank-redemption-personality-7637.php.