The words that serve as the title for this blog entry are not my own, of course. They were written by Stephen King, in his "Shawshank Redemption". I read the book, and just about everyone knows, and loves, the movie. In fact, I do not know a single person that ever saw the movie that did not love it.
Every now and then, one line that an author writes really encapsulates the whole work, and this line really captures the entirety of the story on many levels. The main character, Andy Dufresne, is a man down on his luck, falsely accused of murder and condemned to spend the rest of his days inside of the dreary walls of Shawshank Prison in Maine, which is one of King's most notable creations.
He enters the prison and is shocked to see what goes on, yet says nothing, gives nothing away in terms of any sort of reaction whatsoever. He does not flinch upon first entering, when the other inmates gather to cheer the arrival of the "fresh fish", with more than just a little hint of a mocking threat in these cheers and chants. Dufresne does not flinch when the "Sisters" take a liking to him, and eventually, favor him as the target for rape. Despite impossible odds, he keeps fighting them off, even though he gets severely beaten in the process.
Even more, he takes what the prison throws at him, which can collectively be considered hopelessness, and turns it around. He makes friends, then begins to enjoy a strong identity. He impresses the police officers and even the warden, and utilizes his skills to their advantage, in order that he himself can start receiving advantage, which he uses not for himself, but for all of the men inside of the prison. Ultimately, he manages to rebuild the library, which is a tiny and poorly funded thing, and turns it into a brightly lit and well-supplied place, filled with books and records and people. it becomes a place of life and hope.
That is what Dufresne does and represents in general, in fact. He manages to slowly but surely chisel away at the thick stone walls of the prison, literally and figuratively in this story, and makes his escape. he builds hope, but not just for himself, both for others. most importantly, for others. He "saves" the other men, if you will, from their own hopelessness. These men are not as innocent as Andy himself, yet he believes in human dignity above all else, and provides it for them. Being inside of the prison himself, he does not so easily label and dismiss them, as many outsiders will tend to do, but sees them as his equals, his peers. At some point, he makes clear that he has "no enemies here" inside of the prison.
It is a beautiful story of hope in desperate times and circumstances, and it can serve as a lesson, as pretty much all great literature and stories, and indeed art in general, tend to do. It shows what human endurance, a good and strong heart, and a strong effort to keep hope alive can do, even under seemingly impossible odds.
Yes, I am aware that this is a work of fiction and thus, not "real". Yet, in our everyday real worlds and real lives, we all too often lose sight of greater realities than those we see in our everyday existence, and that is not just a crime, it is a tragedy. That is exactly how we can lose hope in this world, as we collectively seem to be doing now. So, all I am saying is that we can learn a little something about "truth" from something that is not entirely real, but is "fiction". Sometimes, fiction has more truth in it than the truth of our real life existence. Sometimes, are in general is more real than the real world.
Funny, but this post was going to be about something else entirely. I was just using this great line to illustrate another point entirely, and yet, here I am, having written something entirely surprising and different than even I expected. That is one of the great things about the arts, about creating: that you never really know what you are going to get. This took a surprising turn, and yet, I am not entirely displeased with it. Maybe it is a sign of my intensely random and excessive verbiage. Maybe, it is a sign that I am creative enough to find many different meanings from one source, kind of like being able to turn a jewel this way and that, appreciating and admiring it from different angles, all of which give different views towards the one same object, which you have to have a trained eye for. Hopefully, it is the latter, and also hopefully, this is a sign that maybe I have, or am developing, just such an eye.
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