The Shawshank Redemption: Andy as Protagonist

My take is The Shawshank Redemption is an example of a Dual Protagonist story. Here is an analysis of the movie with Andy as a Protagonist figure.

I choose to look at Andy and Red as Dual Protagonists. That is you can look at the story through either of their eyes.

Archetype line-up:

Andy

Protagonist = Andy
Nemesis = Warden Norton, The Sisters
Attractor = Tommy
Mentor = Red
Trickster = Captain Hadley

Red

Protagonist = Red
Nemesis = Institutionalization
Attractor = Andy
Mentor (Negative) = Brooks
Trickster = Freedom

Andy starts in a stark Disunity state: An innocent man wrongly in prison. Also consider these comments from the judge when sentencing Andy:

JUDGE
You strike me as a particularly icy
and remorseless man, Mr. Dufresne.
It chills my blood just to look at
you. By the power vested in me by
the State of Maine, I hereby order
you to serve two life sentences,
back to back, one for each of your
victims. So be it.

“You strike me as a particularly icy and remorseless man.” Then consider Red’s observation when he first set eyes on Andy:

RED (V.O.)
I must admit I didn't think much of
Andy first time I laid eyes on him.
He might'a been important on the
outside, but in here he was just a
little turd in prison grays. Looked
like a stiff breeze could blow him
over. That was my first impression
of the man.

A “little turd in prison grays.” So in the External World, where he’s trapped in a FOOW (Fish-Out-Of-Water) experience — innocent man in prison — in the Internal World, he begins the story in a state of retrenchment, almost more a lump of human material — “an icy man / little turd” — than a fully evolved human being. The experience of whatever it was that caused his wife to drift away from into an affair, her death, his trial, and now his imprisonment has created this beginning negative Disunity state.

Ironically Andy’s stay in Shawshank transform him, forcing him to get back in touch with aspects of the human experience and his own core essence that cause his ‘authentic’ self to emerge: Love of the arts (music, books, chess); hobbies (carving chess pieces, upgrading the library, helping Tommy with his education); simple pleasures (listening to a Mozart opera, watching his friends drink beer on a rooftop). He also evolves to a point where he admits a basic truth, this confession in his final conversation with Red, the day before Andy escapes from Shawshank:

ANDY
My wife used to say I'm a hard man
to know. Like a closed book.
Complained about it all the time.
(pause)
She was beautiful. I loved her. But
I guess I couldn't show it enough.
(softly)
I killed her, Red.
Andy finally glances to Red, seeking a reaction. Silence.
ANDY
I didn't pull the trigger. But I
drove her away. That's why she
died. Because of me, the way I am.

He admits to culpability in the failure of his marriage and turning away from his wife, the “icy man,” the “hard man to know” contributing to her seeking affection elsewhere in her affair. However I think we can quibble with Andy a bit here: She didn’t die because of the “way I am.” Rather because of the way he was. Is there any doubt in your mind that if Andy’s wife were still alive and Andy walked out of Shawshank the way he is at the end of the movie, he wouldn’t have done everything he could to love her, share his feelings with her, be fully committed to his marriage?

That’s because Andy does change, does transform over the course of the story toward his Unity state. But he doesn’t realize the full measure of his Unity with his escape. Red needs to join him in Mexico for that to happen.

The oppositional dynamic is played as a sort of tag team. We meet the prison warden (Norton) when Andy first enters prison (“Put your faith in the Lord. Your ass belongs to me.”), but then he drops pretty much out of the plot until early in the second act. So the screenwriter and director Frank Darabont uses Bogs and The Sisters, their sexual aggression, to serve as a transitional antagonist role. Once they’re dispatched, almost immediately Norton is back in the picture. And if Andy’s goal is to get out of prison, Norton is the obstacle standing in the way. This is made most manifest when he has Tommy, the prisoner who heard Elmo Batch’s confession to the murder of Andy’s wife, assassinated.

Speaking of Tommy, I look at him as Andy’s primary Attractor character largely because he is a projection of who Andy was when he entered Shawshank: An unformed mass of human potential, someone who while making some mistakes on the outside, doesn’t really deserve to be in the type of correctional facility Shawshank is. He’s also separated from his wife and child — and perhaps Andy projects a “what could have been” for himself emotoin into his understanding of Tommy. In any event, as Red observes, “He [Andy] really liked the kid.” So when Tommy is killed, in the External World, Andy loses Tommy’s testimony re Elmo Batch, which means he has no legal recourse to get out of prison. But in the Internal World, there is another emotional response to Tommy’s death: It is the devastating experience of seeing something Andy had nurtured — Tommy’s growth intellectually and emotionally — get crushed by the Norton and the system. The combination of that contributes directly to Andy deciding to escape.

I think Red functions as Andy’s Mentor. Red is the man “who’s known to get things.” He understands the ways of prison life; indeed Red is the one who tips off Andy about The Sisters’ sexual interest in Andy. Red acquires for Andy the basic tools by which Andy digs his way out of prison — the rock hammer, movie posters. Red tries to counsel Andy to not get caught up in hope, a position that reflects Red’s own Disunity issues, so in that moment, Red functions as a ‘negative’ wisdom, a shadow or dark mentor, helping to confirm in Andy that hope is all there is in this prison, hope is theonly thing Andy can cling to in order to survive. Finally, Red is the character Andy reaches out to again and again to explain what he’s doing (how he cooks the books for Norton’s extortion scheme) and where Andy is with his own emotional transformation (most notably, his final ‘confession’ scene with Red the day before he escapes).

And the Trickster? The hulking prison guard Hadley. He is clearly a threat to Andy, but once Andy wins him over, offering to handle Hadley’s financial dealings, Hadley is the character who disposes of Bogs by beating him to the point Bogs is confined to a wheelchair and moved to another facility. Hadley puts up with Andy’s efforts on behalf of the library, but also busts him during the whole Mozart opera shenanigan. And most importantly, Hadley provides one of the biggest tests for Andy — by pulling the trigger on the rifle that kills Tommy. All that fits a Trickster character.

That’s my take on Andy as a Protagonist. We can also look at the story through Red’s perspective as a Protagonist — making them in essence Dual Protagonists.

I provide my analysis of Red as Protagonist here.