The ShawShank Redemption or the ShawShank Deception?

     Known for his great ability to create characters and mysterious stories, Stehen King is a  famous writer, and we all know that. Rita Hayworth and the ShawShank Redemption was the first of his works that I read, and as I read it one aspect that made me awe at King was not his characters but his way of telling a story. It’s hard to explain what exactly gave me that feeling of awe I think this phrase explains it the best, “Simplicity within Complexity”. You’d like me to explain what I mean, but give me a moment, there’s things that I also want to talk about, you see.

     When I first looked at the title of this story, what I thought of was, “why is Rita Hayworth in the title?” You see, it didn’t come to my mind how she was such an important part of the story that her name had to be in the title. Also when Andy first mentioned about Rita Hayworth, what I thought was how are they going to smuggle a human being into prison? Well, it turned out that they were misconceptions due to my lack of Hollywood stars of the 40’s. 

     When you have read my essay up to this point, most of you would have awed at how inconsistant I can get. It was, a very poor imitation of what King’s writing felt like when I first started reading the ShawShank Redemption. Dozens of characters that were thrown at me before I could take them all in, the time setting of the narration was switching back and forth, wardens changing...and the story itself progressed in a very compressed and tightly manner. So when I tried to hurry myself in reading it, it seemed very inconsistant. Within all the complexity, however, the characters were so lifelike and the theme of hope was prevailing throughout the story. Such aspects were what made me awe at King. It seemed, that he had all the story and characters right next to him while he was telling the story from Red’s view point. The theme of hope which is one of the main reasons that make this story such a masterpiece, is another thing that really stuck to my heart. 

     For me, the hope theme was sort of a surprise. As I read the story, it revealed it self as something closer to a story like Prison break, or maybe something like Edgar Ellen Poe’s work. The suspense created by the introduction of Tommy williams and the wardens refusal to help Andy fit perfectly for a very good mystery. It could have easily become the ShawShank deception without King’s ability to focus on simplicity within the complexity. However, instead of making it the ShawShank deception, King injected hope into the readers and created the story was we know it today--the ShawShank Redemption. So what was it that made the difference. In the book, the symbolism of Zihuatanejo, Rita Hayworth, and the tiger named hope did the trick, I believe. When my understanding reached this point, I could understand why Rita Hayworth was in the title. She was not only a Hollywood Star, but she was the link to the outer world, the link to the stars, and the link to hope. 

     In 1994, this masterpiece of literature was transformed into a film. The story itself was very fit for a film, that itself is clear, but I think that the producer of the film did a magnificent job. Even though I usually enjoy books better then films, this is one of those exceptions that always exist in life.(in other words, you should really watch it if you haven’t) My favorite part in the movie was actually a new insertion to the story. In the movie, Andy finds a record while opening a package and decides to turn it on the speakers. What a scene it was. It was a part that really brought the theme of hope to a tipping point, and I really loved it. 

     So back to what I was originally talking about, King is a really good writer. Isn’t that simple?:) That’s pretty much all I was trying to talk about through this semi-long post. I really liked how he was able to focus on a thing called hope, and how he developed such a complicated story with such simplicity--it’s really hard you see, this essay itself was my effort to imitate the feelings I felt while reading his story, you know the results better than I do. Now, I would like to end this post with the famous ending, I hope.