The Hero’s Journey in Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption
10b1 111034 Jonathan Hongsoon Kim
Humans have always enjoyed telling tales. Starting
from the dawn of the first civilizations on Earth or perhaps even earlier, societies
have passed on stories and legends to later generations; this trend is still
present in the modern era in the form of novels, movies, or even bedtime
stories millions of parents tell their restless children every night. Within
these diverse stories, we can find certain patterns. There are certain events
or aspects that seem to appear in one form or another in these stories; there
is a certain pattern that the heroes of these stories all seem to take. From Gilgamesh
to Bruce Wayne, from Jesus Christ to Little Red Riding Hood, and from Beowulf
to Luke Skywalker: these heroes, all in their individual worlds,` travel a path
that is known as the Hero’s Journey.
The hero of Stephen King’s novel Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is
no exception. While, of course, there may be a few steps altered or missing
from the traditional hero’s saga the overall flow is still observable.
When trying to analyze the Hero’s
Journey in Shawshank Redemption, we
run into one initial problem: who is the Hero? There are two main protagonists,
Red and Andy, and both of them, though from different perspectives, go through
the events that make up the plot. At first glance, it may seem like Andy is the
sole hero; Red’s narration is centered on Andy and his actions. However, I believe
that the character that actually went through the Hero’s Journey is Red
himself. Of course, physically speaking, Red hardly went anywhere; he was confined
in Shawshank prison for decades before finally being paroled almost at the end
of the novel. Yet we can see that Red has experienced certain changes,
particularly in the way he views the world. Thus, I think that Red’s journey is
not a physical one, but a process that changed the way he perceived the world
and himself.
The “Ordinary World” that Red lives
in could mean many things. It could mean the outside world that Red lived in
before coming to Shawshank, it could mean his life before Andy appeared, or it
could mean Shawshank life in general. However, I think that the Ordinary World is
not a physical world, but rather Red’s mentality of not having much hope. Red was
a down-to-earth, slightly pessimistic man who avoided having any high hopes,
should they lead to disappointment; this was the world that he lived in prior
to meeting Andy. Even when some convicts around him attempted escapes or were
paroled, Red did not expect much from his own chances of getting out of
Shawshank. He was prepared to live his entire life in prison.
After “Refusing the Call” of hope
several times, Red meets his “Mentor” in the form of Andy Dufresne. Andy, in
the eyes of Red, immediately distinguishes himself as “different” from the
other convicts. Andy, quite unlike Red, is always hopeful and does not lose
this hope. The two become friends and, over the decades they spend together in
Shawshank, Red slowly begins to regain hope. The next few steps of the Hero’s
Journey are not clearly defined in Red’s story, but eventually, after Andy’s
climatic escape, Red starts to believe in the power of hope again.
Thus Shawshank Redemption is a hero’s tale. It is not one of slaying
dragons or saving mankind from alien invaders but of one man’s humble road to
regaining hope that he had once lost. Red, after being paroled, completed his
Hero’s Journey of regaining hope and used it to write a memoir, spreading his
tale of hope to the rest of the world.