Red has a great role toward Andy’s life. Andy also teaches Red about the meaning of hope. Red teaches Andy about the meaning of friendship. It is seen
when Red has to go to the parole board to get free from the prison life. Red cannot convince the parole board so that the parole board rejects him. Red begins losing
his hope, but then Andy helps and reminds Red about the meaning of hope. It happens again when Red comes to his real world and begins to lose his hope.
Andy changes Red to be a person who believes in hope. The same situation also happens to Andy when he loses his hope to be a freeman when Warden Norton,
the prison leader, decided to make Andy stay forever in the prison. Norton uses Andy as his tool to “wash” dirty money.
Besides the meaning of hope and friendship, this study also concerns with Andy’s life struggle. From the beginning of the story, the readers can see Andy’s
life struggle before he was imprisoned until he finally escapes from the prison. In this novella, the author, Stephen King, is concerned with hope and
friendship. Throughout the novella, the main character is described as a lonely person. From the beginning of the story, the main character gets trouble from the
other characters. But the main character, Andy Dufresne, faces all the problems on his own. Eventhough in the story it is described that Andy and Red are two good
friends, Andy always struggles by himself.
B. Approach
I analyze the novella by applying the psychological approach. The reason I use the approach is to analyze the character of Andy Dufresne and his life struggle
for being unfairly treated. The related theories to the approach are theory of motivation and theory of character.
C. Procedures
The procedure of this study concerns with the steps in analyzing Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.
First of all, I read the novella several times to get the best understanding about its content. The next reading was to focus on the character’s description,
and his life’s struggle. The next step is to gather the information on Andy Dufresne’s
characteristics from his direct comment, his character as seen by others, his past life, thoughts, speech, conversation of others, and from his reactions toward some
situations. In analyzing Andy Dufresne’s life struggle, theory of motivation and behaviour is used.
In order to understand the novella better, reading secondary source is a must. This includes watching its movie version, and criticism, of the novella
found in the internet. Finally, after analyzing the novella, criticism, suggestion, and
recommendation are put forward.
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CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS
The purpose of analyzing the character is to understand what kind of person the character is and how he is described in the novella. This chapter will be
divided in two parts. The first is the character analysis of Andy Dufresne and the second is the Andy’s life struggle for being unfairly treated.
A. Andy Dufresne’s Characterizations
In the novel, Andy is thirty years old when he comes to Shawshank in 1948. Andy is described as a short neat little man with sandy hair and small,
clever hands. From this description, Andy does not look like a criminal. He is described as business person at the time. Andy is described as a smart person with
high social class. This can be seen from Andy appearance. Andy wears gold- rimmed spectacles. In 1948, a man who wears something made from gold means
that he is a rich or belongs to high social class. Andy is a clean person. When Andy came to Shawshank in 1948, he was thirty years old.
He was a short neat little man with sandy hair and small, clever hands.
He wore gold-rimmed spectacles. His fingernails were always clipped, and they were always clean. 14
From the quotation above we can see that Andy is a good looking person. He always appears neatly.
Andy is a hard worker. This can be seen from Andy’s job. Andy works as a vice president in the famous department of a big Portland bank. In that era,
banks were growing up rapidly. The competition between the banks is tight. Therefore, the banks’ employee and employer had to work hard.
On the outside he had been a vice-president in the trust department of a large Portland bank. Good work for a man as young as he was,
especially when you consider how conservative most banks are…… and you have to multiply that conservatism when you get
up in to New England, where folks don’t like to trust a man with their money unless he’s bald, limping, and constantly plucking at
his pants to get his trust around straight. 14
From the quotation above we can see that Andy is a persuasive person. This can be seen from he becomes the vice – president in the trust department of
Portland bank. Andy is a married person. His wife is Linda Collins Dufresne. Andy’s wife
affair begins when she has expressed an interest in the learning the game of golf at the Falmouth Hills Country Club.
The facts of the prosecution’s case that Andy never contested were these: That he had a wife, Linda Collins Dufresne; that in June
1947 she had expressed an interest in learning the game of golf at the Falmouth Hills Country Club; ….. 15
Andy is a calm, cool, and dispassionate person. Andy does not look nervous when he is answering the questions in the courts. His casual manner in
the courts impresses the judge. In front of the jury, Andy is described as a businessman, and a self-possessed young man. They do not believe that Andy is a
criminal who is charged for killing his wife and her lover, Glenn Quentin. They just couldn’t see this coldly self-possessed young man in the
neat double-breasted three-piece woollen suit ever getting falling down drunk over his wife’s sleazy little affair with some small-
town golf pro 18
Andy Dufresne took the stand in his own defence and told his story calmy, coolly, and dispassionately. ………. ‘That’s when I knew
for sure,‘ Andy told the breathless spectators. He spoke in calm, remote voice in which he delivered almost all of his testimony. 16
–
17. From the quotation above we can see that Andy is very calm person. In the
court, he takes his own defence in front of the jury and tells his story calmly and clearly.
Andy is an introvert person. This can be seen in the story that Andy is not a social person. Andy always loves to be alone.
I knew him for close to thirty years, and I can tell you he was the most self – possessed man I’ve ever known. What was right with
him he’d only give you a little at a time. What was wrong with him he kept bottled up inside. If he ever had a dark night of the soul, as
some writer or other has called it, you would never know. He was the type of man who, if he has decided to commit suicide, would
do it without leaving a note but not until his affairs had been put neatly in order. 17
Andy is an honest person. In the court, he tries to tell the truth in front of the judge. He always tells the fact about the story. He has never made up a story
about the crime he commited. ‘
Since I am innocent of this crime, sir, and since I am telling the truth about throwing my gun into the river the day before the crime
took place, then it seems to me decidedly inconvenient that the gun was never found’. 21
Andy is a lonely person. He has never had deep relationship with anybody. He always tries to avoid having interactions with others. He does not have any
cellmate. He just likes to be alone. In the prison, he is known as the lonely guy. Andy has the status for being alone and independent.
he had a reputation for being a snob and a cold fish. People were saying he was marked for trouble already. One of the people saying
so was Bogs Diamond, a bad man to have on your case. Andy had no cellmate, and I’d heard that was just the way he wanted it,
although the one – man cells in Cellblock 5 were only a little bigger than coffins. But I don’t have to listen to rumours about a
man when I can judge him for myself. 25
Andy is a kind of a person who can adapt easily with his environment. Andy is able to behave properly with his surroundings. He also has the great
ability to establish a relationship with others. He nodded and walked away. Three days later he walked up beside
me in the exercise yard during the laundry’s morning break. He didn’t speak or even look my way, but pressed a picture of the
Hon. Alexander Hamilton into my hand as neatly as a good magician does a card trick. He was a man who adapt fast. 28
Andy is a tough and courageous person. He always looks calm even though he has big problems. He always tries to solve his own problems with his
own power and bravery. I watched him curiously. He walked a few steps, saw something in
the dirt, bent over, and picked it up. It was a small rock. Prison fatigues, except for those worn by mechanics when they’re on the
job, have no pockets. But there are ways to get around that. The little pebble disappeared up Andy’s sleeve and didn’t come down. I
admired that … and I admired him. 29
Andy is an independent person. He always keeps his nails clean and neat. Andy shows that a problem does not make him stop to struggle but it will support
him to be stronger than before. Although he has Red who is always ready to help him, Andy always tries to solve his problem by himself.
There are thousands who don’t or won’t or can’t, and plenty of them aren’t in prison, either. And I noticed that, although his face
still looked as if a twister had happened to it, his hands were still neat and clean, the nails well – kept. 29
Andy has a weak looking person. This can be seen that Andy becomes the victim of “the sisters” sexual-harasm. The sister’s prays are those who are weak,
young, and inexperienced. In the “the sister’s point of view, Andy is the perfect target.
They are to prison society what rapist is to the society outside the walls. They’re usually long-timers, doing hard bullets for brutal
crimes. Their prey is they young, the weak, and the inexperienced…… or, as in this case of Andy Dufresne, the weak-
looking. 30
Andy is a kind of a person who prefers to fight than to give up. Andy can handle the biggest problem in his prison life. He always fights back and never
gives up easily. Andy went through that alone, the way he went through
everything alone in those days. He must have come to the conclusion that others before him had come to, namely, that there
are only two ways to deal with the sisters: fight them and get taken, or just get taken. 31
Andy is a crafty and manipulative person. He knows how to use the power of the money in the prison life. He used to be a banker in one of the largest banks
in Portland. I’m not saying it was Andy Dufresne, but I do know that he
brought in five hundred dollars when he came, and he was a banker
in the straight world – a man who understands better than the rest of us the ways in which money can become power. 33
Andy is a persistent person. This can be seen in the way he changes the rock into a beautiful sculpture. He makes the sculpture step by step. First, he chips
and shapes, and then he polishes the rock and finally he finishes it with the rock – blanket.
How much work went into creating those two pieces? Hours and hours after the lights out, I knew that. First the chipping
and shaping, and then the most endless polishing and finishing with those rock – blankets. Looking at them, I felt the warmth that
any man or woman feels when he or she is looking at something pretty, something that has been worked and made – that’s the thing
that really separates us from the animals, I think – and I left something else, too. A sense of awe for the man’s brute
persistence. But I never knew just how persistent Andy Dufresne could be until much later. 38
Andy has the ability to manage the prison library and expand it. He becomes the assistant of the head of the library, Brooks Hatlen. He uses his ability
to make the prison library bigger than before and has more books collection. The library, finally, becomes the best prison library in the New England.
Andy succeeded in the Brooksie’s job, and he was head librarian for twenty – three years. He used the same force of will I’d seen
him use on Bryon Hadley to get what he wanted for the library, and saw him gradually turn one small room which still smelled of
turpentine because it had because it had been a paint closet until 1922 and had never been properly aired lined with Reader’s
Digest Condensed Books
and National Geographics into the best prison library in New England. 49
Andy always tries to live with the simple life by avoiding any trouble. Eventhough Red promises that Andy will not get any trouble if he needs
something, Andy still stands on his own belief.
‘ No,’ Andy said. ‘I don’t like the pills either. Never have.
But I’m not much of a one for cigarettes or booze, either. But I don’t push the pills. I don’t bring them in, and I don’t sell them
once they are in. Mostly it’s the screws who do that.’ ‘
But –‘ ‘
Yeah, I know. There’s a fine line there. What it comes down to, Red, is some people refuse to get their hands dirty at all.
52
Andy is an optimistic person. He always keeps calm whatever happens to him. Andy is the type of a person who never feels hopeless; therefore he seems to
be a tough person and never gives up even though he gets the heaviest problem in the prison. He never asks for help to solve his problem, except some things that he
asks Red to get it. He always thinks forward and is prepared for any obstacles which maybe heavier than the previous ones.
A terrible thing happened to Andy in late March or early April of 1963. I have told you that he had something that most of other
prisoners, myself included, seemed to lack. Call it a sense of equanimity, or a feeling of inner peace, maybe even a constant and
unwavering faith that someday the long nightmare would end. Whatever you want to call it, Andy Dufresne always seemed to
have this act together. There was none of that sullen desperation about him that seems to afflict most lifers after a while; you could
never smell hopelessness on him. 56 – 57
Andy is a person who has a good self management. He does not easily get angry eventhough he gets ridicule from other characters. Andy always tries not to
get involved in to trouble. He always perceives other’s mock with smile a and changes the topic of the conversation without making the other characters
offended. On a couple of occasions he asked Andy ‘what a smart guy
like you is doing in the joint’ – a question which is the rough equivalent of that one that goes ‘what’s a nice girl like you doing
in a place like this?’ But Andy wasn’t the type to tell him; he would only smile and turn the conversation into some other
channel. 60
Andy is a type of a person who believes in hope. When Andy first comes in Shawshank, he believes that he is not guilty of murdering his wife and Glenn
Quentin. He always dreams of freedom. He said it was as if Tommy has produced a key which fitted a cage
in the back of his mind, a cage like his own cell. Only instead of holding a man, that cage held a tiger, and that’s tiger name was
hope. Williams had produced the key that unlocked the cage and the tiger was out, willy – nilly, to roam his brain. 62
Andy never feels hopeless. He enjoys every moment in his life. He always looks comfortable eventhough he has hard day in the prison. His eyes have never
given the impression of being suppressed or distressed. It goes back to what I said about Andy wearing his freedom like an
invisible coat, about how he never really developed a prison mentality. His eyes never got that dull look. He never developed
the walk that man get when the day is over and they are going back to their cells for another endless night – that flat – footed, hump –
shouldered walk. Andy walked with his shoulders squared and his step was always light, as if he was heading home to a good home –
cocked meal and a good woman instead of to a tasteless mess of soggy vegetables. 75
From all the quotations above I can be concluded that Andy is good looking, persuasive, calm, honest, optimistic, persistent, introvert, tough,
independent, crafty, and manipulative.
B. The Analysis on How Andy’s Reaction to His Experience of Being Unfairly Treated