Shawshank Redemption

Shawshank Redemption is a Stephen King novella that was later made in to a movie. A ton of King books have been made into movies, yet very few have been bona fide box office hits. However, they are often cheap to produce, so the low revenue may be justified by the low expenses. The story is narrated by Red, a convicted murderer who grew to know another convicted murderer, Andy, in prison. Andy was a well-to-do banker who continued to claim his innocence and refused to let prison get the best of him. He had to endure many horrible situations (which were described too graphically), but always fought through and refused to adopt the "institutionalized" mentality. He used his knowledge and skills to help the inmates and the guards (including providing account support for various scams.) Alas, the staff found him too valuable, and when evidence surfaced from another inmate that would identify the true murderer, the inmate was quickly transferred away. In the end, Andy realized he would have to help himself, and managed to carry out an escape on his own. In doing so, he never forgot his friends. The story is very engaging and hard to put down. One theme in the novella is that prison helps to make prisoners. After being institutionalized for a long period of time, people have adapted to the "rules" of prison life, no matter how harsh they are. Freedom can appear to be a new burden as it presents new challenges and new decisions that were not required while incarcerated. (Red in particular had trouble adjusting to his "new" life after gaining parole.) This contrasted significantly with Andy and his strength to avoid letting his sole get institutionalized.