![]() ![]() Red reveals he’s been writing the story of Andy’s incarceration and escape since he received the postcard and now, he believes, he’s finally finished. After Andy escapes Shawshank in 1975, Red receives a blank postcard from the U.S.-Mexico border, a message from Andy letting Red know that Andy is fulfilling his dream of running a hotel under a fake identity in Mexico. Red finds Andy’s self-possession and desire for freedom admirable-yet Red believes that, unlike Andy, he has gotten too “institutionalized” by prison to live in the free world again. After Red obtains several items for Andy, including a rock-hammer and a pin-up poster, they become friends. In prison Red learns to obtain contraband items for other prisoners but refuses to deal in hard drugs, weapons, or contract killing, as he doesn’t want to be complicit in more death. Red regrets the murders but doesn’t think Shawshank “rehabilitated” him-a distinction emphasizing how little incarceration does to rehabilitate people who’ve committed crimes. ![]() ![]() In 1938, at age 20, he was convicted of triple homicide and sent to Maine’s Shawshank prison. Red, who narrates Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, is a funny, self-deprecating man with “carroty red hair.” He grew up poor, married a rich girl he impregnated, and became so frustrated with his family situation that he cut the brakes on his wife’s car, killing her and her two passengers. ![]()
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