Read in September, 2015.
I debated writing a post about this novella for a couple reasons: (1) I only read it because I think the movie is one of the best of all time, and for some reason I thought that my reasoning discounted the possibility of a new blog post, (2) I really like the movie better than the novella, (3) it's a novella, which means I have pathetic excuses to not write, and (4) I really got tired of trying to find a decent title for this blog and it wasn't until four years after making it that I found one that I like. And I stole it from Emily Dickinson. I'm a true 21st Centurion, stealing creativity and branding it as my own.
I tend to really enjoy prison stories. The Longest Yard and Orange is the New Black and Shawshank Redemption are specific movies/shows that I really find fascinating. I've narrowed my interest down to the fact that these movies humanize the group of people that society has deemed "the worst". They did horrible things, therefore they are horrible people. They deserve to be locked up for the benefit of society. I am not going to debate the prison system, but I will say that prisoners are people with feelings and emotions just like we are. In these stories, the consumer starts to sympathize with criminals. It makes me second-guess my attitude towards that fatally annoying girl in my Spanish class. Everyone's life matters.
The message of Stephen King's novella is that hope is a sustaining force. Even if you were falsely indicted and spent the next twenty years in prison, you, like Andy Dufresne, can survive. The novella explores the dangers of losing hope in a better world in the form of prisoners "institutionalizing" to their cell. They spend so long in one place that moving forward is not only uncomfortable, but unreasonably difficult and eventually leads to a certain recently-released prisoner to suicide. It also explores the crushing defeat that hope can have on a soul when it takes so long to come to fruition.
I feel like I need to clarify the purpose in writing in this blog. I realize that I have given no critique on Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption or on Stephen Kind or his writing. My intent on writing has changed since I started so long ago. I'm interested to see how the transformation in my blog reflects the transformation in my own life in the past four years. I began by critiquing these books and offering my opinions on their literary qualities. This was at a time when I was critical of everything around me, mainly people. Having just taken a college course on literary theory, my perspective on "good" literature has changed. There has been a lot of debate on where meaning comes from in literature. I think that it comes from a mixture of several sources: the aestheticism of the text, authorial intent, and of course my own interpretation. Reading is a way for my own beliefs to surface. I vicariously struggle with a character's experiences which elicits an emotional response, which I can solidify as I write. Writing in this blog is a way for me to explore my emotions and beliefs, allowing me to shift the analysis from the book to my own life. Reading becomes an introspective and a spiritual experience for me as I search for strength to persist and room for improvement.
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