40 pages • 1 hour read
Stephen KingRita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption
Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 1982A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Pages 84-111Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 84-111 Summary
Red begins by announcing that Andy escapes Shawshank. The year is 1975, and Red speculates that a man named Peter Stevens is now residing in Zihuatanejo. He informs the reader that he will discuss what he knows and then what he thinks.
Red provides a detailed timeline of events. One morning, as the guards are taking the roll, they discover that one of the inmates is not accounted for. At first, they think nothing of it and are not even sure that it is Andy who is missing. Usually in these circumstances, the inmate is either very ill or has died by suicide. Finally, the guards figure out that Andy is nowhere to be found. They immediately notify the warden and try to take a measure of what has happened. The warden is furious and begins chastising a guard, a man by the name of Rich Gonyar. The guards, at the warden’s behest, begin questioning the other inmates. Nobody has the slightest idea what happened to Andy, a fact that the warden doubts. As events unfold, the warden becomes increasingly agitated and irate. In an outburst of anger, he swipes at Andy’s poster of Linda Ronstadt hanging on the cell wall. The poster comes off from the wall, revealing a large hole.
The warden screams orders at Gonyar to go into the hole and search, an order that Gonyar refuses. Instead, a smaller guard, a newcomer, is ordered to climb into the hole and search it. After about four feet, the guard discovers a sewer pipe that had been split open. He realizes what is in the pipe; he becomes sick and starts screaming and eventually vomits. This makes Red laugh uncontrollably, which will land him in solitary.
The rest of Red’s narrative is mainly speculation with some facts mixed in. The new guard did continue on and eventually, they were able to determine that Andy had used the sewage pipe to escape the prison. Red mentions that the story of Andy’s escape was big news in the papers. About three months after Andy’s escape, Warden Norton resigned from his position in disgrace.
Red guesses that Andy first had a notion of escaping back in 1948 when he first asked for the Rita Hayworth poster. He likely had tried to scribble his name on the wall and discovered the poor quality of the cement. Red says that perhaps a large chunk or two had split off with ease, giving Andy the idea that he could tunnel out. Because Andy was a diligent and patient man, he likely sat on the idea for some time before moving on it. After the incident with Tommy, the idea grew in urgency. Eventually, he figured that the perfect time for escape was drawing nearer.
Red reflects on what Andy endured to gain his freedom. This involved crawling in a confined space, through human waste, presumably confronting angry rats, without really knowing where the pipe ended. Even though Andy had most likely reviewed the blueprints of the facility, there was no guarantee that he would get to the end of the pipe and that it would not be covered with a grate of some kind. It wasn’t and Andy was able to escape.
Red reveals that sometime in 1975, he received a blank postcard from McNary, Texas, a town bordering Mexico. This confirms that Andy had managed to survive his escape and began enacting his plan. Red discusses his narrative, which he decided to begin writing in 1976. He apparently ends it after wishing Andy well, and suggesting that he deserved his freedom.
The narrative shifts again, with Red restarting the story. He has been granted parole and has tried to assume a normal life. He chronicles the difficulties he has readjusting to life outside of prison. Also, he has taken up a new hobby of going to Buxton and looking for the volcanic rock that Andy had mentioned. Eventually, he finds it. In the box underneath it, he finds a letter that Andy wrote to him. Andy reasserts his invitation to Red to join him in Mexico. Red decides to accept the offer and begins his travels toward the border. He notes that it is a parole violation, but that most likely nobody would really be searching for an old felon like him. He ends the narrative stating that he hopes to reunite with his friend.
Pages 84-111 Analysis
The plot gains steam as it propels toward its climax, where conflict reaches an apex. Red doesn’t hide the climax, which is that Andy escapes from prison. He states bluntly: “In 1975, Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank” (84). This has the effect of creating a sense of drama and suspense. The reader is not reading to find out what happened, but how it happened.
Red rewinds the story and pieces together the events that enabled Andy’s escape. His retelling moves the reader in a non-linear fashion, a characteristic of postmodernist literature. King’s novella shares aspects of both modernism and postmodernism. Like modernist literature, the work is focused on its characters’ interiority and search for meaning. Like postmodernism, King embraces a fragmented sense of narration, a style that emerged with modernism and was emphasized by postmodern work.
In this section, Red reveals that the narrative he has been providing is actually a written account—a compilation of memory. He writes about the writing process, another feature of postmodern literature. He describes the way the brain may work when writing and the internal dialog that occurs: “Writing about yourself seems to be a lot like sticking a branch into clear river-water and roiling up the muddy bottom” (103). In this way, King comments on the challenging nature of composing prose.
The Power of Hope and Friendship is central to this section. The most important development in Red’s life when incarcerated is his friendship with Andy. Red’s confession at the beginning of the story, in which he takes responsibility for committing murder, suggests that his despair is shaped by guilt. Red does not believe in redemption, or that he is entitled to it. Andy gradually opens Red to its possibility. Andy’s optimism, which Red sees as dangerous, eventually prevails on Red. Red comes to see Andy as a symbol of hope and his own internal sense of freedom. As he says: “Andy was the part of me they could never lock up, the part of me that will rejoice when the gates finally open for me and I walk out in my cheap suit with my twenty dollars of mad-money in my pocket” (103). Andy empowers him.
Andy also teaches Red persistence. When Red is finally paroled from Shawshank, he chases down the box that Andy had mentioned to him while in prison. Hunting for the box is “[a] fool’s errand” as the box, hidden in a hayfield, is a needle in a haystack (108). In searching for the box, Red is following his friend’s example, and is rewarded. Inside the box, Andy’s letter emphasizes the power of optimism: “Remember that hope is a good thing, Red, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well” (109-10). Andy likely anticipated that like many parolees, Red would struggle to acclimate to life outside of prison. Andy reiterates hope’s power, and as the novella concludes, Red uses the word as a refrain. The repetition of “I hope” underscores hope’s importance and creates a sense of rhythm: “I hope Andy is down there. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope” (11).
Andy has taught Red that hope is an essential aspect of life. Red says: “It always comes down to just two choices. Get busy living or get busy dying” (110). It is hope that enables him to make the choice to “[g]et busy living.” Andy’s example, and his friendship with Red, have shepherded Red toward redemption.
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