Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption

Content Warning: This section of the guide mentions a character’s death by suicide.

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption was adapted into a film, The Shawshank Redemption (1994), which is considered iconic by many. The film follows the overarching plot established in the novella. Red, played by Morgan Freeman, is the narrator and storyteller. Andy, played by Tim Robbins, is falsely convicted of double murder and imprisoned at Shawshank. The film also generally adheres to the novella’s climatic scene, Andy’s escape. At the end of the film, as with the novel, Red’s voice ends the story. He speaks a refrain, each line beginning with the phrase: “I hope.”

The film deviates from the novella in several specific ways. The film pays more attention to the struggle that other inmates experience once they are released. For this reason, the character of Brooksie, an inmate who dies by suicide after his release, is much more developed in the film. Byron Hadley is also more prominent in the film. His violence is portrayed, whereas in the novella, Red speaks about it in a hypothetical sense. In the film, music becomes part of the plot, specifically an opera that Andy plays over the prison’s PA system, which elicits awe and wonder from prisoners and guards alike.