6. Analysis of Novel Using Literary Lenses

I wasn't really sure which lens to use in this story, because I thought it was sort of odd that reader response was not on the directions. I don't think I can fully avoid the reader response, because my reactions to this book are long standing and I think I can say that in some ways, I have carried this story with me since I first read it.

One of my all-time favourite quotes (almost forty years) is attributable to Red's character:

It always comes down to just two choices. Get busy living or get busy dying." (King110)

This would fit well in the journal entry about resilience, but I am placing it here because to me it is significant through my reader response. It's kind of a big paragraph for such a short quote, but that is how meaningful it is to me.

For a long time, when I was so much more obese than I am now, I was walking around feeling like I would drop dead at any moment. I was so heavy that my arms stuck out when I was standing at ease, like a child with a snow suit on. I had many medical issues and I felt helpless. I was hopeless than anything would ever change. I gave up. My body and eating habits were not unlike a life sentence in a horrible jail.

I wanted to do something to help myself but I had been failing at that for forty five years. I often thought about this quote because even though I was going through the motions of owning a business, being a wife and a mother, I had a perpetual cloud over my head, a sense of impending doom. I truly felt like I was waiting to die. I'd even thought about the fact that I felt badly for my family members because I would not feel anything if I died, but they would be devastated. My utter helplessness to fight in that situation sat heavily on me. I was hopeless.

Today, I look back and I look forward. I've resolved a lot of my physical issues and stay up to date on taking care of myself and being proactive with doctors when I have concerns. I knew I had turned a corner when at some point in my experience of recovery, I realized that I was no longer actively doing anything that might bring on my early demise.

When that happened, it was such a relief. Relief from guilt, relief from feeling inadequate and guilty, relief that even if I did suddenly drop dead, my family would know that I had fought to save myself in the end.

My resilience, is why I am here today, writing this culminating project, retaking English and taking the Biology and Chemistry. My life is hopeful and I have a strong sense of being driven and ambitious. I feel like I am going to live forever, so being fifty four isn't even an impediment!

I decided to use the psychological lens because this story is truly about resilience. I don't know a lot about psychology but I decided to research some concepts that I considered key and look at them through a lens of psychology. I thought about using the gender lens, but the lack of any tangible female characters made that more complicated than I wanted to think about. As a woman, analyzing a text about men, I was afraid to venture into cliché instead of valid use of a gender lens.

I'd like to define a few things. In most cases, I researched the meanings and have cited one that brought it all together:

Psychology- The study of mind and behavior. It encompasses the biological influences, social pressure, and environmental factors that affect how people think, act and feel. (Cherry and Susman)

Persistence- Voluntary continuation of a goal-directed action in spite of obstacles, difficulties, or discouragement. (Dean)

Perseverance- Continued effort to do or achieve something, even when this is difficult or takes a long time. (Cambridge Dictionary)

There are several definitions of redemption, so I chose the one most relevant to this work- The act of making something better or more acceptable. (Redemption definition & meaning)

Resilience- The process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress. (Building your resilience)

Using a psychological lens to analyze the novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption gives deeper meaning to the narrative. The story is a long study of the behaviour of people experiencing biological influences (the physical effects of being held in jail, given poor food, lack of fresh air,) social pressure (the sisters and their raping of prisoners, the pressure that Andy experiences when he tries to quit working for Norton,) and environmental factors (the actual jail being damp, old, smelly, dirty and unsafe.)

In his article, Authentic Happiness- Persistence Defined, Ben Dean quotes Peterson and Seligman's definition of persistence as "voluntary continuation of a goal-directed action in spite of obstacles, difficulties, or discouragement." (Dean) I think that Andy's escape from prison falls more into the category of persistent than resilient, although you could argue that I am splitting hairs. I do think though that his persistence was a result of his resilience. Stephen King published this story before this came out but in 1983, Stames and Zinser (Dean) found that "People tend to persist longer at solving problems when they are told that they are going to be difficult. This is interesting from a psychological perspective because if a person does not try and then does not succeed, their failure is explainable. If they try and fail, it is much easier to interpret that failure as a personal shortcoming." (Dean) Red philosophizes that "Andy just froze in place for awhile. After all, you don't lose if you don't bet." (King 102)

I never realized, before I looked up exact definitions of persistence and perseverance, how similar the two definitions are. When I started researching, I realized that the differences are subtle but distinct. I found a plethora of research papers on the topic, usually referring to learning outcomes but decided that I don't have time to read them all! I continued searching and found an interesting web site, which I thought broke it down beautifully. With thanks to differencebetween.com!

Persistence is goal oriented. For example, a child might continuously demand something from their parents repeatedly until the child gets what he wants. The article indicates that "the key feature in persistence is single-mindedness of the individual towards the achievement of a particular goal." (Difference between persistence and perseverance) Interesting. I kept thinking about this word in relation to Andy Dufresne, but realized that maybe the nomenclature was not quite right.

Perseverance can be explained more as a "steady determination to overcome one's difficult situations in life." (Difference between persistence and perseverance) I think that when Red explains the jail break (or what he understands of it) he makes it fairly clear that the escape was probably not a goal right away. There were many obstacles for Andy to overcome from the moment he entered Shawshank, and he kept chipping away at them until each one passed. He persevered in getting past the abuse of the Sisters, he persevered in finding a better position for himself by making himself valuable, he persevered in growing the prison library, and he persevered in tunneling through his wall. He persevered despite not knowing if the field in Buxton might have been torn up and his false identity was lost. He persevered no matter what, without knowing at any point if he would be able to complete his goal. He just kept going. Year after year, after year. That is a lifetime (or a jail sentence) of perseverance.

I thought long and carefully about the redemption part of the title. Clearly there is not anything overtly an improvement for Andy Dufresne in this story, although one could argue that by meeting Andy at Shawshank, Red's future after he leaves is redeemed. Andy, who should not have been there in the first place, could not be redeemed in Shawshank. The only redemption I can think of for Andy is the prison break.

There is an interesting juxtaposition here. In most cases, we would perceive a prison break as a bad thing. We would not have respect for those who commit them and we would typically be fearful about prisoners being allowed to escape. In the case of Andy Dufresne, we know from the beginning that he is innocent, that he is a good person in Red's estimation and by example in the text. We sympathize with him while reading the story and watching the time pass by as the narrative progresses. It is hard not to imagine what it must feel like to be in such circumstances and the impossibility of seeing any light at the end of the tunnel. For Andy Dufresne, his successful prison escape is his redemption. It redeems him from twenty seven years of being held for something he did not do, from the Sisters, from the guards and wardens that use him for their own gain and from solitary confinement (the grain and drain train.) It is impossible to feel anything but empathy for Andy and to see his escape as anything but a redemption for the poor man.

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), resilience is "the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress."(APA 2012) In the article Building Resilience, the APA writes that resilience is not a personality trait but a learned behaviour. They go so far as to say that resilience is not extraordinary!

The suggestions made by the APA to build resilience (I've chosen a few) sound familiar when put in the context of Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption:

Prioritize relationships- Andy and Red develop a strong bond and support each other. When Andy tells Red about Mexico and says he would need a "man who knows how to get things" and Red responds that "he would not know how to begin. Or where." Andy responds by telling him that he underestimates himself. He tells him "You're a self-educated man, a self-made man. A rather remarkable man, I think." (King 78)

Help others- Red helps others to obtain things. He charges money for it, but he still puts himself in danger every time he does it. He recounts the obtaining of thousands of items of various descriptions. His mark up isn't bad either. When Andy asks for the rock-hammer, he upcharges from eight dollars to ten dollars, just twenty five percent. That seems fair for the risk. (King 19)

Andy became the librarian in the jail after he started helping the jail staff with their financial issues. He turned the prison library from a closet into three rooms and made a serious effort to stock it with things that would be helpful for the prisoners:

He wrote to the major book clubs in New York and got two of them...to send editions of all their major selections to us at a special cheap rate. He discovered a hunger for information on such small hobbies as soap-carving, woodworking, sleight of hand, and card solitaire. He got all the books he could on such subjects. (King 42)

Andy made himself useful to the point where Warden Norton provided "a new set of automotive repair manuals, a fresh set of Grolier Encyclopedias, books on how to prepare for the Scholastic Achievement Tests. (King 52) Norton did these things because he "just didn't want to lose his good right hand...he was scared of what might happen-what Andy might say against him-if Andy ever got clear of Shawshank State Prison." (King 52)

Keep things in perspective- When Andy tells Red about his money and false identity, Red is shocked and says "Jesus Christ, Andy, if all of this is true, how do you keep from going crazy?" Andy responds by saying with a smile "So far all quiet on the Western front." (King 77) indicating a demeanor that is calm and measured.

In conclusion, its almost as though Stephen King wrote this novella with a psychology book in his lap. He has an English degree, not a psychology degree and it is

amazing that he got so many aspects of his depiction of resilient charachters so right.

(Building your resilience)