《肖申克的救赎》：黑暗孤独中只有思想

真正不灭的希望在哪里。也许，仅仅只是在我们自己心里的那一念之善罢了。 当我们心存着仁慈，以平常之心去对待所有对我们公平或者不公平的事情。

不管我们遇到的是一种什么样的状况。我们总能泰然处之并且找到通往救赎的天堂之路。

《肖申克的救赎》是一部极其轻缓的电影。我喜欢这部电影那种娓娓道来的语调以及这种大气的节奏。这种感觉似乎只能在某种伟大的作品上才能看到，比如《阿甘正传》。最好的电影在节奏上来说似乎只有两种，类似这种轻缓的或者那种快节奏以营造紧张气氛见长的。

说这是一部不朽的电影也许一点也不过分，就算它在奥斯卡的角逐上失利了，可是同样改变不了这种现实。至少这是一部在你看完了之后永远也不会忘记的电影。电影用第三人称的旁白描绘了肖申克监狱二三十年间所发生的所有事情，以瑞德的视角描绘了安迪的作为和因为他而得到救赎的肖申克监狱。

大量的旁白和第三人称的视角赋予了这部电影既主观而又客观的叙述角度；而不管任何一种叙述角度都好，只要运用得当其实并没有优劣之分的，可是在我的个人喜好来说，我相对比较喜欢这种叙述方式。因为很安静，一直很安静，不带半点狂躁的味道。讲述者在安静地诉说，而我在安静地倾听。这就是我所说的那种轻缓味道里最安静的味道。

而不可否认的是，这种味道和这部电影的救赎主题是如此相得益彰的。所以，是不是也可以因此说，这部电影的这种叙述方式和主题是如此统一而给了这部电影有了那种足以让人迷醉的光茫呢。至少说，这是一部把这种叙述方式运用得当并且成功的电影。

一部伟大而不朽的作品似乎只要在我们谈及某种东西的时候就能让我们立刻联想到这部作品。比如监狱、救赎、希望、努力??我们会想到这部电影。

【关键词：黑暗】

在很多人的定义里，这首先是一部嘲讽美国司法制度和狱政制度的电影。因为如果不是因为司法制度上的错判的话，安迪是不会进入肖申克监狱；而如果不是因为狱政制度上阴暗腐败的话，安迪也不会成为诺顿的洗黑钱机器也不会有了后面的整个故事。然而在我的定义里，这部电影首先定义上应该是一部有关人性黑暗以及救赎的电影，如果把它定义在司法制度和狱政制度上的讽世之作的话反正局限了这部电影本身的那种更深一层的意义而让这部电影显得肤浅了。

在我看来，不论是司法制度上的漏洞或者是狱政制度上的阴暗腐败，其根本依旧还是人性上的阴暗和贪婪。如果说，安迪的错判入狱还仅仅只是因为司法制度上的错判，那么后来安迪得到了一个推翻错误回归到自由社会的机会，可是这个机会却威胁到了典狱长诺顿的安全和洗黑钱系统的整体流程的话，那么，这个机会被诺顿的彻底扼杀就完整地体现了这种人性上的黑暗。

人性是所有一切社会规则和法规的根本。不管多健全的制度最终依旧只能靠人去操作运转，而如果操持着整个制度的人本身依旧带着贪婪的欲望去观摩这一切的时候，他们总能找到可乘之机或者错漏之处。

安迪的入狱也许还能说是司法制度上的的漏洞以及客观证据的指证。可是他的出逃却只能是一种极其无奈的选择。因为除了这样的方式来完整他高洁的灵魂，他已经找不到其它的任何方式去完成本该就属于他的自由和梦想了。

可以说，所有左右这一切的仅仅只是诺顿的一念之善或者一念之恶罢了。当一个人身陷于冤狱而诉求无门的时候，我不知道他所面对的是一种怎么样的绝望。黑暗也许并不是最可怕的，而真正可怕的是这种绝望带来的对于人生一眼所看到的没有光亮的前路。我也不知道在瑞德平静的语调里所讲的安迪呆在他狭小的牢房里沉默不语的第一个夜晚里他是如何度

过的，他的思索中的那些又会是什么。他即将开始的是一种永远也没有光亮的生活，他即将在这个黑暗的夜里开始他漫长而没有前路的人生。

黑暗，无边无际的黑暗从此将他笼罩并且永远将他紧紧地包裹住了。希望和梦想从现在起都将离他而去了。他只是一个不善于表达爱意和情感的内敛男人，所以他永远失去了不知道如何向她表达情感的妻子，所以他在妻子出轨之后将她赶出了家门并且死在了情人家的床上。对他来说，这一切构建成了他心安理得地生活在牢狱里的心理基础，他在赎罪，对他来说他并没有杀害妻子可是他的行为间接或者直接地导致了妻子的死亡。

沉重的负罪感和胶着的漆黑沉沉地包裹着他。不再有希望和光明。我们看到的是一种多沉重的黑暗，也许，我们就能明白光明和希望带给我们的快乐。

【关键词：希望】

也许正如瑞德所说，希望是个可怕的东西；尤其对他们来说。他们不是死囚，所以他们必须抛弃任何希望地活着。一次或者多次的终身监禁让他们永远也只能生活在这四面高墙之内了。从一开始对高墙的恐惧到逐渐的适应，以及最后形成了对高墙的依赖，这样的一个过程其实就是一个逐渐摒弃希望的过程。

没有希望，他们可以心安理得地在这里面活着，一直到死去。所以托马斯会在离开监狱获得他50年牢狱生活之后的第一个假释带给他的那种有限自由感觉时感到一种不安和惊惶，然后自杀身亡。他说，他没有办法适应这个自由的社会，他小时候只看过一次汽车，而现在到处都是汽车。自由给了他的是希望，这一点是无须置疑的，然而却正是这样的希望带给他的却仅仅只是担忧和惶恐不安的生活。每次在半夜里做着恶梦醒来却还必须是想一想之后才能明白自己身在何处。这样的生活也许反而不如他在监狱里来得自由和安心。

在托马斯的心里其实一早已经忘却了自由的感觉。所谓希望，对他来说已经一早已经彻底死去了。虚妄地承诺给他一个自由的希望，他反而不知所以了。

相比之下，安迪体现了另外的一种心态。“要么忙着生存；要么忙着死去”；一句话道明了安迪对生存的渴望和那些从不曾熄灭过的对希望的热诚祈盼。电影用一种晦涩的表达故意让我们以为安迪会在得到希望以及失去希望之后自杀，这种表达方式非常巧妙地用了瑞德的角度，而因为瑞德正是这样以为的，所以我们也就跟着如此以为了。

瑞德以为将要用600年才能掘通的希望之路，安迪仅用了20年不到的时间就挖通了，至少让我们看到了他从不曾熄灭过的强烈渴望。没有尽头的牢狱生活太过无聊，总得找点什么事来消磨时间。托马斯和瑞德等人选择了听之任之的绝望，而安迪则选择了希望和自由。 冤狱的错判赋予了他出逃的正义之名，他的希望并不是越狱逃避自己应有的罪责；相反他仅仅只是为了争取属于他的自由和梦想。他曾经以为可以用一种更光明正大的方式得到他的自由光明磊落地走出肖申克的四壁高墙，而且因为这样的希望而变得疯狂躁动，而当这种渴望被诺顿彻底地枪杀了之后，他唯一的选择似乎只有这种极端的方式了。

【关键词：救赎】

可以说，安迪的成功出逃成了整个肖申克的救赎。从他的第一次为了所有参加户外劳动的狱友们争取一瓶冰冻的啤酒，从他利用自己的特长获得了狱警的信任之后用监狱的广播室给所有的人们播放意大利音乐，从他每周一封信去为整个监狱争取几本图书馆退化的旧书，从他把一间破烂的小房间改造成一个硕大的图书馆，从他开始帮助一些刑期较短的囚犯们学习并获得学历以便他们出狱后的改造??所有的这一切都带给他们一种救赎的感知。

而这一切，归属于希望。因为安迪对未来抱着不灭的希望，于是他开始散播希望，开始救赎大众。每一个在肖申克里的人都是清白的，因为他们都被律师骗了。这样的自欺欺人的思想带给他们一种圣洁的光芒。就算他们真的是罪有应得，可是这个世界是否还应该给他们一点希望呢。救赎的寓意在于，安迪的存在净化了他们的灵魂和思想。

这部电影曾经被定义为现代版本的《基督山伯爵》；然而在我看来，大仲马也许并不比

史蒂芬·金或弗兰克·达拉邦特伟大多少。毕竟《基督山伯爵》仅仅只是一个稍显复杂的复仇故事，而《肖申克的救赎》更多的是在于救赎。

我不知道多少人能在蒙受了不白之冤并被判两次终身监禁之后还能如安迪那样平静，那样思索并且那样有所作为。至少我们总会愤愤不平，总会想着如何去复仇，如何向那些让我们身陷囹圄的人们讨回公道。在安迪身上，我们能看到的更多的是一种宽恕的光，一种包容和逆来顺受。宽恕吧；千丝万缕，都宽恕了吧。

把希望隐藏在心里深处，在赎去自己心灵的罪责时争取自己应有的权益，与其把时间花在如何消磨光阴上，不如把这些时间都运用到自己应该去做的最本份的事情上。救赎，仅仅只会为了那些已经准备好了的灵魂。

瑞德也许是整个肖申克监狱里获益最大的一个。因为安迪在通往一条自我救赎的路上，带着瑞德一起通往了他最美的那个梦境。电影最后的那个拥抱给了我莫大的安慰，至少，在救赎了之后，我们可以看到提被实现了的希望和自由。而所有的这一切，都只赖于一个人自我的选择和努力。

第二篇：英文影评资料之肖申克的救赎

Red, the narrator, recounts how he planned and carried out his wife’s murder by disabling her brakes, which accidentally killed a neighbor and child as well and earned him a life sentence at Shawshank Prison. Red also remembers the arrival of an inmate named Andy Dufresne, whose tenure at Shawshank affected the lives of everyone at the prison. Andy was sent to Shawshank for life in 1947 for the cold-blooded murder of his wife, Linda, and her lover, tennis pro Glenn Quentin. Despite the damning evidence placing him at the scene of the crime on the night of the murders, Andy has always maintained his innocence, which Red eventually comes to believe in as well. Andy has some initial difficulty adjusting to prison life, especially because many of the other prisoners think he’s a snob. A gang of men known as the Sisters frequently attack and rape him in the laundry room while the guards look the other way. Andy fights the Sisters, even though it always lands him in the infirmary and sometimes solitary confinement. Despite these hardships, however, Andy never complains or loses his confidence. Soon after arriving at Shawshank, Andy approaches Red and asks him to procure a rock hammer because he’s interested in rock collecting and carving. After a while, he also pays Red to smuggle in some polishing cloths and then, rather nervously, a large poster of pinup Rita Hayworth. Red fulfills Andy’s requests. After a few years, Red and Andy both find themselves on a work crew, tarring the roof of the prison’s license plate factory. Andy overhears Byron Hadley, a prison guard, complaining to the other guards about the taxes he’ll have to pay on the $35,000 he just inherited from his long-lost brother. Andy offers Hadley some financial advice by telling him to give the money to his wife as a one-time tax-free gift. Andy even offers to fill out the paperwork for Hadley in exchange for giving three beers to each prisoner on the work crew. After some initial hesitation and suspicion, Hadley agrees. The deal wins Andy the respect of everyone involved and makes him a mythic hero in the eyes of the prisoners. Andy also becomes a valuable financial resource to those who run the prison. As a result, the guards and the warden protect Andy from the Sisters, make him the prison librarian, and don’t assign other inmates to his cell. Andy relishes his new position and works hard during the next two decades to significantly expand the library. Andy’s financial responsibilities start with filing the guards’ tax returns, but they soon expand to laundering money for the various prison wardens, including Bible-thumping Samuel Norton. Andy has no moral objection to hiding the money that Norton receives from construction companies, but he doesn’t realize that doing so also hurts his chances of ever leaving Shawshank. A new inmate named Tommy Williams arrives at Shawshank and tells Andy that he served time in another prison with Elwood Blatch,

a man who privately admitted to killing tennis pro Glenn Quentin. When Andy asks Norton to request a retrial, Norton dismisses Andy’s claims and puts him in solitary confinement for more than a month on the “grain and drain” diet of bread and water. Norton, meanwhile, transfers Tommy Williams to another prison out of fear that Andy would expose his money laundering operation if paroled. After another aborted attempt to reason with the warden and another stint in solitary, Andy drops the issue and becomes more brooding and introspective. Eventually Andy emerges from his lengthy depression and tells Red one day that he had a friend set up a false identity for him. Under the false identity, the friend invested $14,000 of Andy’s money, which has since become more than $370,000. Andy, however, can’t touch the money, saved under his alternate identity, because he would risk exposing himself and losing everything. The documents and lucrative bonds are kept in a safe-deposit box at a local bank, the key to which has been stashed under a black volcanic rock wedged into a stone wall in the countryside near the prison. Andy dreams of escaping, assuming the new identity, and becoming the proprietor of a small hotel in Mexico. Andy also imagines Red going with him. Red thinks nothing of this until years later when the prison guards find Andy’s cell empty one morning. The guards search the prison but find nothing, until an extremely frustrated Norton rips the pinup poster from the wall to reveal a gaping hole in the thick concrete. The hole leads to the sewage drainpipe, which empties into the marshes surrounding Shawshank. Red figures that Andy slowly and systematically used the rock hammer and polishing cloths every night for nearly twenty years to carve through the wall. After completing his hole, Red also figures that it took Andy roughly eight years to muster the courage to actually try to escape. A search of the marshes and nearby towns reveals nothing, however, and Norton has a nervous breakdown and resigns. Red never hears anything from Andy but receives a blank postcard from a border town in Texas some months later. The story of Andy’s escape spreads throughout the prison and gives him an even greater mythic status. He becomes the symbol of hope for many prisoners, not only as someone who successfully escaped, but also as a man who never let prison crush his spirit. Red adds a postscript to his story about a year later, writing from a hotel in Portland, Maine, after being released from Shawshank. The transition to life on the outside has been tough, and Red thinks of Andy when he feels the urge to commit a petty crime or violate the terms of his parole so that he’ll be put back in prison. Now working as a bag boy at a supermarket, Red uses his days off to explore the countryside, partly because he likes the freedom and the space but also because he’s looking for the volcanic rock where Andy hid the key to the safe-dep

osit box. Red walks the rural hayfields in search of the stone wall Andy had described years earlier, and after several weeks of searching, he finally finds the rock. Underneath, Red discovers a letter addressed to him from Peter Stevens, Andy’s pseudonym. The letter invites Red to join Andy in Mexico and includes a gift of $1,000. Red concludes the postscript with renewed hope for the future as he decides to abandon his job, violate his parole, and make his way to Mexico to find Andy. Analysis of Major Characters RedRed is the lifeline of the prison, the man who can smuggle almost anything into Shawshank from the outside world. By making himself indispensable to the other inmates, Red affords himself protection and an esteemed place in the pecking order of the prison yard. He forces the other men to do business on his terms and knows full well the need to defend his own interests in a world where violence and exploitation are the norm. Ultimately, however, Red’s hardened stance conceals his fear and insecurity as he struggles to make sense of his life both in and out of prison. Even though Red’s narrative focuses on Andy and his eventual escape, Red admits that the story is really all about himself. Andy’s inner confidence and sense of self-worth represent the part of Red that Hadley, Norton, and the other prison authorities never managed to crush. Although Red has undoubtedly thought of escaping numerous times during his thirty-eight years in prison, it is Andy’s resolute sense of hope that Red admires. Red knows that hope is what keeps him and every other inmate alive. Andy DufresneAndy is an enigma to Red and the other inmates, a man they admire but never really understand. An element of fantasy infuses the characterization of Andy: at one point King even refers to the mysterious “myth-magic” that his protagonist seemingly possesses. In truth, Andy is an anomalous figure who stands out from the rest of the inmates at Shawshank Prison, but not for any mythical or spiritual reason. Andy’s calm, cool collectedness govern his interactions with the world around him, and he rarely succumbs to emotion or cheap sentiment. What many inmates take for snobbery is actually reserve and caution as Andy tries to stay one step ahead of his adversaries. Without this strength and inner resolve, Andy would never have survived his twenty-eight years in prison nor managed to escape. Andy emerges as an object of fascination for many of his fellow prisoners, a figure onto whom they project their various embellishments of the ideal man: Andy, the man who can talk down the guards; Andy, the man who can manipulate the warden; and Andy, the man who can escape out from under everyone’s noses. Samuel NortonWarden Norton embodies the hypocrisies and contradictions of the penitentiary system. The national exposure and adulation he gets for his “Inside-Out” program belies and conceals the corruption that prevails during his tenure a

nd the campaign of threats, intimidation, abuse, and excessive cruelty he employs to maintain control of the inmates. At times aligned with images of death—his face is compared to a cold slate tombstone—Norton is a self-deluded despot who justifies his exploitation and the promotion of his self-interest at the expense of others in the name of his faith and the fire-and-brimstone Bible passages he often quotes. Themes, Motifs, and Symbols Themes The Burden of Isolation and ImprisonmentEach of the inmates inside Shawshank Prison is locked up metaphorically as well as literally, hiding from himself or unable to function in the unregulated world that extends beyond the prison walls. There are many levels of isolation inside Shawshank, from the large, enclosed recreation yard to the smaller work crews down to the cellblock, cells, and, finally, solitary confinement. The prison is thus a multilayered world, a microcosm of the world outside that the prisoners have been forcibly removed from. The bars, strict schedules, sadistic keepers, and predatory Sisters only add a sense of entrapment and suffocation to these layers of isolation. Shawshank’s confines, however, also highlight the extent to which the prisoners have isolated themselves and compromised their sense of identity. Beneath the hardened criminals lie insecure, maladjusted outcasts, many of whom believe they can’t function outside the prison system. Elwood Blatch, for example, is a braggart and an egomaniac whose exaggerated accounts of his exploits fool none of his listeners into believing that he is the master criminal whom he makes himself out to be. Red, meanwhile, identifies Andy as the part of himself who never let go of the idea of freedom. Freedom is a frightening concept for Red, who dreams of being paroled but eventually struggles to find his place in society after almost forty years in prison. Recounting Andy’s escape, therefore, allows Red to face his fears and find the psychological freedom he seeks. The Power of HopeHope, more than anything else, drives the inmates at Shawshank and gives them the will to live. Andy’s sheer determination to maintain his own sense of self-worth and escape keeps him from dying of frustration and anger in solitary confinement. Hope is an abstract, passive emotion, akin to the passive, immobile, and inert lives of the prisoners. Andy sets about making hope a reality in the form of the agonizing progress he makes each year tunneling his way through his concrete cell wall. Even Andy’s even-keeled and well-balanced temperament, however, eventually succumb to the bleakness of prison life. Red notes that Tommy Williams’s revelation that he could prove Andy’s innocence was like a key unlocking a cage in Andy’s mind, a cage that released a tiger called Hope. This hope reinvigorates Andy and spreads to many of the other inmates in the prison. In his letter addressed to Red, Andy writes that “hope is a good thing,” which

in the end is all that Red has left. Red’s decision to go to Mexico to find Andy is the ultimate proof of Red’s own redemption, not from his life as a criminal but from his compromised state, bereft of hope and with no reason to embrace life or the future. Red’s closing words, as he embarks tentatively onto a new path, show that hope is a difficult concept to sustain both inside the prison and out. Symbols Rita HayworthThe pinup posters of Rita Hayworth and the other women represent the outside world, hope, and every inmate’s desire to escape to a normal life. Andy admits as much when he tells Red that sometimes he imagines stepping right through the photograph and into another life. More literally, Rita Hayworth really does remind Andy of his desire to actually break out of Shawshank because of the chiseled hole in the concrete that the posters conceal. As a result, Rita Hayworth embodies the sense of hope that keeps Andy alive and sane and distinguishes him from the other inmates. Even though it takes Andy more than twenty-five years to hammer his way through the wall, the mere fact that he has something to work for keeps him from lapsing into bouts of self-pity as the other inmates do. Having a mission and something to look forward to—even before he knew he would use the hole to break out—kept Andy alive and gave him his “inner light.” RocksThe rocks Andy sculpts serve as a cover to justify owning a rock hammer, but they also represent the spirit of hope that he exudes. As an amateur geologist, Andy is undoubtedly distracted from the doldrums of daily prison life by the rocks. Continuing to pursue his hobby gives him a sense of normality and control over his life that many other inmates lack. Displaying his collection of polished rocks on the windowsill of his cell also gives Andy a sense of accomplishment and means to measure the passage of time. More important, however, sculpting the pebbles give Andy hope and a means to fend off despair. Giving these sculptures away to Red and other inmates also represents Andy’s ability to transfer his sense of hope—his “inner light” as Red calls it—to some of the other inmates.