肖申克的救赎英文影评
2007-05-31 18:42阅读：
The Shawshank
Redemption
A successful young banker Andy found his wife fornicate with
a baseball coach. He flew into a fury and planned to shoot them
dead at one night. But at last he gave up. His reason won his
emotion. Surprisingly, his wife and her lover died at that night.
Andy was framed for murder. And the sentence was two life
imprisonments. He was sent into Shawshank prison.
That was a dark and gloomy hell with mad prisoners, cruel
warders and viperous and greedy wardenry. The first night Andy
spent in it, a new comer like Andy couldn’t bear the fear and kept
crying and shouting. The result was he was taken out and beaten
dead by the warders. At that moment, Andy understood that if he
want to live he must be silent in Shawshank.
In Shawshank Andy knew an old prisoner Red. They gradually
became friends. Red was able to get some small goods for the
prisoners. So Andy asked for a little hammer bec
ause of his interest in geology.
The life in Shawshank was full of danger. Andy, as a new
prisoner, was often threatened and maltreated by some scoundrels
because he always refused their unbearable and disgusting demand.
In such a dark prison, no one could help him even if someone may
want to. After tow years, one day, Andy, Red and some other
prisoners got the chance to rebuild the roof. They heard the head
of the warders complaining that he had to pay high tax to
government if he wanted to receive his
brother’s inheritance. Andy grabbed the opportunity and taught him
a way to be exempt from taxation. The condition was to give each
prisoner 3 bottles of ice beer. All the prisoners enjoyed the rare
and short freedom leisurely. Red said,” It’s just like rebuilding
the roof of our own house. We are free like God.” Another
consequence was that from then on Andy got the protection from the
head of the warders. And all the warders even the wardenry began to
consult Andy for financial affairs. So some of his special
behaviors were permitted, such as pasting posters of some famous
actress on the wall or carving chessmen with his little hammer at
night.
Prisoner as he was, Andy did more than a civilian. He kept
writing one letter to the government every week to ask for bankroll
to develop the library in Shawshank. After nearly ten years, a new
library finally appeared. When checking the books from the
government Andy found a piece of disc of The
Wedding of Figaro. Then he played the disc in the
radio room, letting the dulcet music spread above Shawshank.
Although he was imprisoned alone for two weeks as penalty, he
wasn’t regretful at all, because of the greatest thing in the
world——music, which represents another
best thing for human——hope. Later on,
Andy knew a new prisoner Tommy, from whom Andy knew who was the
real murderer that killed his wife. He immediately told the
wardenry about this and naively thought the wardenry would help him
leave there. But the wardenry didn’t do that. He killed Tommy. Andy
had been laundering money for the wardenry for a long time. So it’s
impossible for the wardenry to set Andy, as a tool and an attester
for his crime, free. At this moment, everything seemed to be over.
Both Andy and the audience should despair.
But the climax of the movie appears. At a night with
thunderstorm Andy escaped from Shawshank. Everyone including the
wardenry and Red couldn’t believe it. The stone wall which Red
asserted wouldn’t be dug through even with six hundred years was
dug through by Andy in two decades. He kept digging with that
little hammer at night, the sound of which was mistaken for the
sound of carving chessmen. And the hole on the wall was covered by
the huge poster of a famous actress. At that night, Andy crawled
through the narrow tunnel to a drain-pipe and then smashed it with
a stone under the cover of thunderclap. He was crawling while
vomiting in the pipe which was as long as five football grounds by
Red’s estimate. At length, Andy got out of the pipe into a little
river outside the prison. He walked to the middle of the river and
ripped his shirt, letting the rain wash all the filth away. Under
the lightning and thunder, Andy spread out his arms, regaining
freedom. When reading the postcard from Andy, Red sighed with
feeling,” Some birds aren’t meant to be caged, that’s all. Their
feathers are just too bright.”
Andy had said,” Life has only two
choices——get busy living or get busy
dying.” This is the most impressive word in this movie. It
influenced a lot of people including me. Everyone is able to be
busy living, but not everyone can do that all the time. That’s why
a few people have brilliant life; many remain mediocre till the
last minute of their life while some always struggle to get out of
poverty. We complain that God is unfair. We just despair when we
are in all-time low. We take hands-off attitude towards ourselves
when others think we are failure, although we will weep in dreams.
All of these have a same reason——we
forgot that only ourselves can save ourselves.
Holding hope forever especially in desperation and reminding
myself to get busy living at any moment. That’s the most precious
thing I got from this movie——The
Shawshank Redemption.
