Shawshank Redemption Marxist

In Frank Darabont's screenplay for the film, "The Shawshank Redemption," Andy Dufresne , the protagonist, is sentenced for two consecutive life terms in Shawshank prison for the murder of his wife and her lover . Andy knows that he has not committed these crimes and was somehow framed for their murders. Andy suffered in prison initially because the other prisoners were thinking that he was a snob and especially because of the frequent attacks and rape from a gang of men called " the sisters". Andy eventually becomes friends with Red , a lifeline to the outside world who can smuggle almost anything into prison for a price. Andy offers financial advice to one of the officers and offers to fill out the necessary paperwork , therefore becoming a valuable financial resource for the guards and the warden gaining him protection from " the sisters" and assigning him as the prison librarian. He was also assigned financial responsibilities of the guards' tax returns and laundering money for the prison warden. Andy spends 19 years digging a tunnel through his cell wall to plan for his escape, on a stormy night Andy stole the wardens suit and his crooked books that were used for laundering money and escapes prison for a new life.Analyzing this movie through a Marxist lens we see that the …show more content…
In these instances, violence is used by the dominant group to establish their control over the inmates and discourage them of their ability to see themselves as nothing more than a rejected member of mainstream society. we see verbal abuse by the officers towards Andy at the roof top when Andy offered the officer help. we also see physical abuse towards Boggs after his attack towards Andy.This shows how the officers dehumanized the inmates and treated them in horrible ways to show power and