When Andy arrives at Shawshank, we hear the voiceover of Red (Morgan Freeman) who narrates much of the film. He tells us how he initially thought Andy Dufresne would not last one night in prison. All of the established inmates bet on which of the new prisoners will break down first. Later that night, one of the new men starts to cry after being taunted by the older convicts. He is taken out of his cell and beaten half to death by the chief guard, Hadley. We learn later that he does die in the infirmary but no one seems to care. Red says that Andy ended up costing him his wager, as he never made a sound during his first night in Shawshank.

Red is the resident black market dealer for Shawshank and is surprised when Andy asks him to o

The morning after this, all the prisoners are called out of the cells to begin their morning routine. Andy never appears and when his cell is searched, he is nowhere to be found. For a while it seems as if he has vanished into thin air. When Norton comes to inspect the cell, he gets so angry that he begins to hurl Andy's rock carvings around the room. One of them goes through a large poster Andy has up and echoes as it travels further and further inside the cell wall. Norton tears the poster back to reveal a huge tunnel which Andy has been working on with his tiny rock hammer for the past seventeen years.

Back in Shawshank, Andy's persistence results in an annual state contribution to the Shawshank library as well as being sent hundreds of used books and sundries. When they arrive in the lobby, Andy discovers a record of a Mozart opera and, locking himself in the office, plays it over the prison tannoy system. As punishment, he is forced to spend a month in solitary confinement but Red's narration tells us how the music lifted everyone's spirits and, for the briefest of moments, made the walls of the prison melt away.

btain a rock hammer for him. When Red questions Andy as to why he wants it, Andy says that it is a simple carving tool and he would like to carve some chess pieces from the rocks that lie around in the prison yard. Red manages to get it for him and they slowly develop a friendship.

Andy is assigned to work with Brooks, an ageing prisoner who wheels round the library cart handing out books. Andy decides that the library is not big enough and starts petitioning the warden and then the state governors for extra funds. He writes one letter a week for six years before he finally receives a cheque for $200. Andy feels this is insufficient and starts to write two letters a week. Before he receives a reply, Brooks is released having served a sentence of fifty years. The film follows him into the outside world which he finds terribly frightening and lonely. Brooks considers breaking his parole in order to be sent back 'home' to Shawshank but instead decides to hang himself, after

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