A Hero with the Elixir of Hope

     A novel that has a hero tends to follow a particular structure. In a hero’s journey, a hero, who has been living in the ordinary world, faces a call to adventure. Then, the hero meets allies and enemies, and is tested by hardships during the adventure. In the middle of the story, the hero confronts the ordeal, which is the greatest fear, such as death. After overcoming the ordeal, the reward is given. Then, the hero defeats more hindrances in the course of finishing the adventure. Finally, the hero returns with the elixir. Stephen King’s novel ‘Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption’ is also a story about a hero called Andy.

     Andy Dufresene has been an ordinary banker. However, he is accused wrongly of murdering his wife and a pro golfer who is in adulterous relationship with her, even though he is innocent. He is sentenced to life imprisonment and went into Shawshank prison, a new stage of adventure. In the prison, he meets a friend called Red who can deliver contraband into the prison. He provides a rockhammer and posters of actresses to Andy. Andy is often harassed by the sexually aggressive imprisoners. However, one day he listens to a guard muttering about the amount of tax on inheritance from his brother. Andy approaches him and tells him a way to avoid taxation. After the incident, more prison staffs get financial advices from Andy, and they provide Andy privileges and protection from the aggressive prisoners. He overcomes the hardships in the prison.

But after several years he confronts the ordeal. One day, a prisoner called Tommy tells Andy that his former cellmate boasted about killing a pro golfer and avoiding punishment. Andy thinks that he found the opportunity to clarify his innocence and gain freedom. However, Warden Norton simply ignores the story. He confines Andy in a solitary for months and sends Tommy to another prison. Norton cannot let Andy free because Andy is useful to him; Andy is washing his black money. However, after the months in the solitary, Andy is rewarded with resolute motivation to break out of prison. He escapes out the hole he have dug in the wall for seventeen years with the rockhammer and have covered with the posters. He crawls 500 yards in the sewerage pipe, enduring the odor of excretion and presence of mice, and finally succeeds in prison breaking. He brings the money that has been saved for him, and leaves to Zihuatanejo, a place he has dreamed to live in peacefully.

We can find the structure of a hero’s journey in the summary. The story has the sequence of ‘the ordinary world’, ‘the call to adventure’, ‘tests, allies, and enemies’, ‘the ordeal’, ‘the reward’, ‘the road back’, and ‘return with the elixir’. From the course of overcoming the hardships and ordeal and eventually escaping from the prison, Andy’s aspects as a hero are clearly demonstrated.

As a hero, Andy brought a fabulous elixir with his return. The elixir is hope. The other imprisoners were ‘institutionalized’; they adapted themselves to the circumstances of the prison where freedom and justice were not allowed. Eventually, they got to love the suppression and cruelty in the prison. For example, after Brooks Hatlen, who had been the head librarian in the prison, was paroled, he was frustrated to the excess freedom in the world outside. Eventually, he did not last a year after the parole. However, Andy was different. He always maintained hope about a free and peaceful life in Zihuatanejo. His soul full of hope was too large to be confined in a small cell. Through hope, he could overcome the hardships and the despair of institutionalization, and could break out of the prison. Therefore, Andy’s escape gave the inspiration of hope to all the other prisoners, and to the readers of the novel. Andy is a hero who brought the elixir of hope.