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. This scene does not appear in the novella. In the film, Sam Norton is the warden from the beginning until Andy’s escape, whereas in the novella, there are multiple wardens throughout Red’s sentence. Sam Norton dies by suicide in the film, whereas in the book, he resigns in shame.

King’s connection to the film was purposely downplayed by the film’s production company. In Screen Rant, Jack Bartlett writes: The producers believed that King’s famous reputation as a horror writer would turn away a more “prestigious” audience (Bartlett, Jack. “Why The Shawshank Redemption Hid Its Stephen King Connection.” Screenrant.com). Even though the film and the novella contain elements of horror, such as the prison’s gothic overtones and the abundance of sadism and violence, the story would not be considered a typical King work.

As Bartlett writes: “King was often regarded as a pulp writer and, while he remains distinguished for his influence in the horror genre, he is looked down on by much of the ‘literary’ world, having had a years-long debate about the worth of ‘popular fiction’ with the critic Harold Bloom” (Bartlett, Jack. “Why The Shawshank Redemption Hid Its Stephen King Connection.” Screenrant.com). The producers of the film, wanting to target a wider audience to include the “literary” type, distanced themselves from King as a “marketing strategy.” As Bartlett states: “King is duly credited, but this only comes during the end credits, following the entire list of cast and crew” and there is no direct or explicit mention in the marketing material that the film is based off of King’s novella.

For his part, King has publicly lauded the work of director Frank Darabont in the adaptation of his novella. King, writing in commemoration of the film’s 20th anniversary, says: “When I first saw it, I realized he’d made not just one of the best movies ever done from my work, but a potential movie classic” and “Shawshank is its own thing—an American icon—and I’m delighted to have been a part of it” (King, Stephen. “Stephen King Looks Back at The Shawshank Redemption.” Oscars.org).