Different Seasons

Content warning: this section of the guide contains references to death by suicide, sexual assault, racism, and the Holocaust. 

The narrator, Red (no other name given), is the guy at Shawshank prison who can get you anything, though he draws the line at weapons. He is in prison for the murder of his wife, to which he admits, and her friend and friend’s baby, who were in his wife’s car when the tampered brakes failed. He is serving three consecutive life-sentences. He says that he is one of only a few men in the prison who admits to having committed the crime, and he regrets it; in hindsight, he would not have done it, but he’s not sure that that means that he is rehabilitated.

Red tells the story of Andy Dufresne, one of fewer than 10 men whom Red believes were actually innocent. Andy had been a banker before he was convicted of murdering his wife and her lover. The evidence was all circumstantial, but Andy’s fate was sealed by the fact that he was too stoic and self-possessed to get the sympathy of the jury.

One day, Andy comes to Red and asks him to get a rock hammer and some rock-polishing cloths. At this point in the narrative, Red goes back in time to recount Andy’s early experience in the prison. The prison rape gang, the Sisters, targets Andy at first. There is very little that Andy can do to resist, but he retains his self-respect. He always fights the rapists, even knowing that he will always lose. In particular, Red tells one anecdote in which, when Bogs Diamond, the leader of the rape gang, tries to force Andy to perform oral sex, Andy refuses. Bogs threatens to kill him and tells him that if he bites, one of his gang will shove a shiv in Andy’s brain. Andy replies that if he does, the death reflex will cause him to bite down. In the end, Andy is never subjected to oral rape. Eventually, Andy pays someone to beat up Bogs so badly that Bogs leaves Andy—and everyone else—alone after that. The rest of the Sisters sometimes still assault Andy, but less aggressively.

One day, Andy asks Red to get him a poster of Rita Hayworth—one of the items of which Red sells a lot. Andy hangs the poster over his bunk. Over the next 20 years, he replaces it with other pinups. A few weeks later, Andy gives Red two pieces of polished quartz that must have taken endless hours for Andy to chip and polish. Red is warmed by their beauty and awed by Andy’s persistence.

A change in prison administration gives Andy a chance to change his circumstances. Greg Stammas becomes the warden, and one of his friends, a guard named Byron Hadley, comes into some money. Andy and Red are on a work crew, tarring the prison roof in the hot sun. Hadley is talking about his inheritance and complaining about how the government will tax most of it. Andy overhears him and tells him how to avoid paying tax on the money. Red realizes that, suddenly, Andy has power over the guards; he has something that they need.

Andy agrees to do all the paperwork for Hadley in exchange for beers for all the men on the detail. Hadley doesn’t have to agree, but Andy faces him down man-to-man. Hadley assents, and the prisoners sit drinking their beers while Andy watches with a slight smile. Afterward, the prisoners remember him as if he were a savior.

Word gets around, and Andy starts providing financial services to the guards. The prison enslaves its inmates and uses their labor to make an illegal profit that has to be laundered. Andy takes over the laundering. He is moved to managing the prison library and in his spare time writes letters, badgering the state to provide funding for more books for the prisoners to improve themselves and their lives. Eventually, he grows the library from a broom closet to three rooms.

Red and Andy discuss the morality of what Andy is doing. Andy points out that what he is doing is very similar to what he did on the outside. The guards at the prison are brutal monsters, but so are the straight-world investors. The outside investors are just smarter. Red worries about the drugs that the guards are bringing into the prison, but Andy doesn’t touch them. They debate whether it is better to be saint-pure or pig-dirty, and Andy argues that there’s a third way—to do what you have to do to survive while setting limits on how far you will go—which is what Red already does by refusing to deal weapons or drugs harder than cannabis.

Red argues that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Andy tells him that they’re already in hell; the guards make money selling pills, but because Andy helps them to launder the money, they let Andy have the library, and the library has changed the lives of many of the prisoners for the better, giving many of them the chance to pull themselves up in the world.

Prison politics change. One corrupt regime goes out, and for a while, Andy is out of work. He gets a cellmate named Normaden for a while, but when the corruption starts up again, Normaden is moved out. Later, Normaden remarks to Red that Andy was a nice guy but clearly wanted Normaden out. Andy hated for Normaden to touch his stuff, and there was also a constant cold draft—all of which would be significant to Red after Andy’s escape.

Over the years, Andy replaces Rita Hayworth with Marilyn Monroe, followed by other pinups. When Red asks him what the posters mean to him, Andy replies that they represent freedom—as if you could step through the picture and stand beside the girls in the pictures. This especially applies to the poster of Rita; she is standing on a tropical beach, which appeals to him. Andy asks Red if he knows what he means about stepping through a picture. Red doesn’t. Not then. Later, he will understand exactly what Andy meant.