oThEr TeXtS: tHe ShAwShAnK rEdEmPtIoN

The movie begins with Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) on trial for the murder of his wife and her lover, a crime of which he claims to be innocent in spite of some damning evidence. He is sentenced to serve two consecutive life sentences at Shawshank, a fictitious prison in Maine. In Shawshank he eventually befriends Red (Morgan Freeman) and several other prisoners (including Brooks Hatlen, played by James Whitmore).

In his first few years in prison, Andy endures injustice, mistreatment by the guards and repeated abuse at the hands of fellow prisoners (most notably repeated beatings, rapes, and rape attempts by a group of aggressive inmates known as "the sisters"). Andy's pre-prison, professional life as a banker and his knowledge of accounting and income taxes bring him to the attention of the captain of the guard, Byron Hadley (Clancy Brown) and eventually to Warden Sam Norton (Bob Gunton). Andy's financial knowledge earns him some freedom from mistreatment, but he also becomes involved in Norton's illegal money-laundering operations.

Time passes. Brooks is eventually released from prison, but after spending over 50 years behind bars, the elderly convict finds that the normal world holds no place for him, and, in a letter to his friends at the prison, declares he's tired of being afraid all the time. "I've decided not to stay," Brooks writes before hanging himself in a halfway house.

A young prisoner, Tommy, enters Shawshank in the 1960s, and tells Andy that he has information that could free Andy, or at least get him a new trial. It is only at this point that it is made totally explicit that Andy is in fact innocent of the murders, as he has maintained. Andy approaches the warden for help, but the warden is unwilling to lose Andy's financial assistance with his illicit schemes or being exposed and sends Andy to solitary confinement. While Andy is in solitary, the warden has Tommy killed.

Unbeknownst to everyone, Andy has long been working on his escape. Each night he has chipped away at the softening rock in his cell to form an escape tunnel that eventually leads to a 500-yard-long sewage pipe and freedom. Andy, who had a fascination with geology in his former life, uses a small rock hammer and hides his work behind a poster of Rita Hayworth, hence the original title of King's story, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption". Once outside Andy retrieves all the illegally obtained money he has laundered for the warden and escapes to Zihuatanejo, Mexico. He also sends information to the local newspaper implicating the warden and chief guard. The warden commits suicide before he can be arrested.

Red is eventually paroled and sent to a halfway house (the same used by the late Brooks). While Red is initially as despairing as Brooks, he decides to take Andy up on the offer made to him in prison. Red finds a box, hidden by Andy in a hayfield, that contains enough money for him to leave Maine and join Andy in Mexico.