Andy Dufresne the main protagonist of our story starts his life in an ordinary world as a hotshot banker. He had a lovely wife, a lot of money, and a overall good life. However unfortunately to our Heroes’ journey script he gets’s called into a life of adventure.
Well to put it more precisely it wasn’t a really a call to the other world but rather a kidnap. He gets convicted for killing his wife and her lover and gets 2 life sentences in the end. He does try to refuse this call by trying to persuade the Juries to his story but fails due to his unfortunate circumstances. Thus he ends up in Shaw shank prison crossing the threshold of his ordinary life. These steps take place in a very short time during the movie making it somewhat different than the normal Heroes’ Journey movies.
Now after crossing into the unknown world of Shawshank our main heroes meets his friend/mentor Red. Red, one of the first people that Andy talked to, supplies Andy many vital objects that helped Andy through prison life. Red had contributed much to Andy’s escape and had always been a very good friend to him.
Andy faces great challenges through prison life and meets enemies such as the sisters, the wardens, and Hadley. He meets allies such as Red, Brookes, Tommy, and his friends at Shawshank. One of the most important test that Andy had to encounter through was with Hadley. During the tarring of the roof Andy takes a gamble and talks to Hadley about how he can help Hadley to manage his money. Though Andy almost gets thrown off the roof, he succeeds in persuading Hadley and creates a turning point in the story which represents the ordeal of Andy’s journey.
Our main character now earns the protection of guards and many benefits by managing the Warden’s money. Our main character, after claiming his reward prepares for his road back to his ordinary world, or escape from prison. He digs for ears with his rock hammer and succeeds in his escape in the end. Our hero is severely tested and finally most conflicts are resolved. Andy returns with a false identity and lots of money which is his elixir.
The story of Andy Dufresne follows most of the steps in the hero’s journey. However another perspective is to look at the hero as Red not Andy. The real hero of the story could be Red and he could be the one going through the hero’s journey. Though this is a very interesting work with I’ll leave it for later.
Very nice interpretation of the hero's journey. The roof incident, I think, is hard to figure out. It could be "crossing the threshold" or "the call to adventure"depending on how you look at things, but it is too early to be "the ordeal." But, you are correct about the elixir.
ReplyDeleteYou have the building blocks of good writing, but try to use commas more frequently to separate clauses in a sentence. That's the major flaw your grammar has, at this point. In the future you are welcome to submit something on paper after it's been graded.