My favorite quotes-“Get busy living or get busy dying.”, “The excitement that only a free man can feel, a free man starting a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.”, “Only instead of holding a man, that cage held a tiger, and that tiger’s name was Hope.”, “I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams.”-that still makes my heart beat and filled with tears of purity are springing up just reminding of the book. I think this story is the best way to describe the season, spring. Although this story doesn’t describe a flower garden or a number of beautiful butterflies, which symbolizes spring, this story reveals the most sensitive, yet important power of spring. The story recalls us of hope, bravery and life: the things that spring owns and brings out. Behind of the prison episode, we can peep into poetic moments and scents.
Friends and some insights of Stephen King on the internet introduced Stephen King as a great horror story writer, but I figured out that this story isn’t quite horror at all; nearer to something philosophical and humane. Philosophical for the aspects that asks the true meaning of hope and life, humane for the aspects that describes the very essential part of humans. Not just the story but also the style. Even though the vocabulary is rough in order to show the reality of prison society, each sentence isn’t dispassionate and stuffed. Rather, I felt calmness and will to deliver the story. For precise description, I think this story’s mood is not scary, but sorrowful that is bottled up of isolation and solitude to emphasize the faint existence of hope somewhere deep in us: just like spring.
Unreliable narrator Red views Andy with his own bias that through the way Red informs, we could look into the character Red. This correlation including the flow of story makes people insensible to the horror sources. A funny thing is that, as I share some of these characters’ way of their existence, I forget the fact that all of them are quite guileful men who committed heinous crime that I must fear in society. However, while reading, I liked each of them and felt pity. Beyond the awful system of prison-outwardly pretending that all those systems are for rehabilitation- I have included them as a part of my mind’s society that I would never do when I read news about hideous crimes in real life. I can’t explain why, but I think that’s one of the reasons why I felt warmth and hopes through this book. Red, who killed his wife intentionally, made best friends with Andy and kept all his secrets. On the contrary, people on the side of “justice” had driven Andy as a convict, partly because of Andy’s cold style that formed prejudice.
How would I have been if I were one of the prisoners? Some of the colloquial sentences, such as “Isn’t it?”, “I ask you?”, that Red throws to us make fall into the Shawshank, half being myself, half being Andy. The most painful emotion to human being is: loneliness. As brittle as a flower, as feeble as a dried leaf, people’s hearts collapse in front of loneliness. I am not sure if I could be brave enough to dig a hole of freedom embracing all those uncertain terrors. No one knows how Andy kept his mind up. What made him alive? What made him to have it all? Vague hint, hope is the only answer. A strong hope of desire to overcome the uncertainties was deep inside Andy’s heart. His soul was strong enough not to get swayed by a small falling stone like a sea not like a pond. He was able to see through the things unseen.
The most important things are unseen and hard to explain; vague, abstract but strong. Spring might seem to be like pastel-toned season, but since we strongly believe into existence of hope, spring is the richest season after all. Stephen King takes us hope by hope over all the seasons under on an imaginational novel. Indescribable warmth hugs our heart, blooming with hope. I hope people can sense hope as they hope. I hope people will realize the power of hope. So I hope, as I know the eternality of hope.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I haven't modified myself So lots of mistakes! (0ㅇ0)!!
Really nice emotional response to the story. I'm glad you enjoyed it and gained as much from it. I like what you write about the characters being "murderers" and yet - King makes the reader actually "like" them and empathize with them. It makes us question our perceptions, and King likes to confront things like that and make us question the dividing line between good and evil. I think, in his opinion, the line is often blurry. Red really doesn't seem like a violent man, but in book he did a very evil thing. In the film they softened that, which was probably a good idea.
답글삭제All in all - some very beautiful sentences in here. If you liked Shawshank, I think you'd like "The Green Mile" even more.