Different Seasons

Introduction

Different Seasons (1982) by Stephen King is a collection of four novellas that are tied together by a connection to the four seasons. Three of the four stories (“Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”, “Apt Pupil”, and “The Body”) have been made into films, and the fourth (“The Breathing Method”) is under consideration for adaptation.

This guide refers to the 1983 Signet edition.

Content Warning: This book contains references to death by suicide, sexual assault, racism, and the Holocaust.

Plot Summary

“Hope Springs Eternal: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”

Ellis “Red” Redding is serving a life sentence in Shawshank State Prison for the murders of his wife and her friend and her friend’s child. Red meets Andy Dufresne when Andy is wrongfully convicted of the murder of his wife and her lover. Andy first approaches Red to request that Red find him two things: a rock hammer and a poster of Rita Hayworth. Since Red is the prison guy-who-can-get-anything, he gets Andy what he asks for.

In his early years in the prison, Andy is often sexually assaulted, but that ends when he becomes involved in helping the prison warden with a money-laundering operation.