Throughout Spring Break, I watched and read many unique stories. I watched the news, read a plethora of articles, and watched many films on Netflix. One of the narratives that I watched and found interesting was The Shawshank Redemption. It illustrated the story of a Andy Dufresne, an intelligent Vice President of a bank, who was unfortunately found with a loaded pistol outside the area where his wife and her lover were found murdered one night. He was taken to Shawshank Prison where he was made vulnerable to many beatings, cruel treatments, and injustice acts by the guards. Throughout his time there, he befriended many prisoners such as Red who was a man who "knows how to get things" and spent many years helping the warden and the guards with their tax or financial issues. In due time, Andy escaped Shawshank Prison and devised a successful plan that caught the warden and the guards "red-handed" for their illegal acts committed during Andy's imprisonment. I found it unique how the director put together the contents of this film in a way that grasped the viewer's attention. The director captured each scene of the film with attention to detail, such as accurately portraying the clothing attire worn by adult men and prisoners during the mid- 1900s. Also, the film did an outstanding job mimicking the dialect evident during the era in which the film was based upon. More importantly, the story of Andy's imprisonment was revealed chronologically, with the director's intention of selecting important events that exemplified Andy's ingenious character. The director clearly attempted to highlight the personalities and thoughts of several key characters found in the film; an example of this was Red's first-person analysis of Andy as he entered the prison and throughout the time he was there. This method of conveying the personalities and thoughts of the characters found within the film is effective and allows the viewers to truly have a firsthand understanding of the film's significant characters. This film was also constructed in a way that strove to teach the viewers vital lessons in life and to emphasize certain issues that applied not only in the past, but also today. Lastly, this story connects to the narrative I chose to analyze, Forrest Gump, because it also is a film that illustrates a story of an adult male who encounters many issues evident during the mid-1900s. The lessons learned by Shawkshank Redemption in terms of how it was constructed can aid my narrative by providing effective ideas of how to highlight certain themes, traits of characters, and exemplify key events found in history throughout my writing.
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