Summary
An alarm sounds, marking the arrival of new prisoners. Red narrates, "Tommy Williams came to Shawshank on a two year stretch for B & E. That's breaking and entering to you." We learn that Tommy is a cocky young prisoner who stole televisions from a J.C. Penney, and we see him working at the prison. "We liked him immediately," Red narrates, and we see Tommy telling stories to a group of enthralled prisoners. He tells them that he's been in and out of prison since he was 13 years old, and Andy jokes that perhaps he ought to try something other than thieving, since he doesn't seem to be very good. When Tommy asks Andy what he's in prison for, he tells him that his lawyer screwed him over, adding with a smirk, "Everybody's innocent in here, don't you know that?"
Later on, Tommy goes to Andy asking for help in getting his high school diploma. Red narrates in voiceover that perhaps Tommy's sudden ambition had to do with his wife and young child waiting for him outside the prison. Andy tells Tommy that he doesn't "waste time on losers," and Tommy insists that he is serious. Andy sets to work teaching Tommy his ABCs, so that he can read better. Red narrates, "It gave [Andy] a thrill to help a youngster crawl off the shit heap."
We see Tommy taking a test in the library. As Andy turns off the timer, marking the end of the test, Tommy is frustrated with how poorly he thinks he did and crumples up the paper angrily. Tommy screams in anger about the test and leaves the room, as Andy calmly picks up his crumpled up test.
Tommy goes to Red, who tells him Andy's story. When Tommy hears that Andy allegedly killed his wife and her lover, his face falls. The scene shifts and Tommy tells a story of his cellmate at another prison, a man who claimed responsibility for Andy's crime. We see Tommy's cellmate in flashback telling the story of killing the wife and her lover, laughing nefariously about his crime and the fact that the woman's banker husband was wrongfully convicted.
Hearing this story, Andy goes to Norton's office to tell him. Norton doesn't buy it and thinks Tommy is just making the story up to get on Andy's good side, but Andy is convinced that Tommy is telling the truth, and wants another trial immediately. "How can you be so obtuse?" he says to Norton, assured that he can find the real criminal's record and get another trial. When Norton once again shuts him down, Andy tells him that if he gets out, he will never mention the money laundering that goes on at the prison, which makes Norton even angrier. Norton has Andy put in solitary for a month.
We see the men talking about Andy's month in solitary, discussing whether he's actually innocent or not. Tommy receives a letter from the board of education; Andy apparently sent in his test. Tommy wants to throw the envelope away, but Red opens it to find that Tommy got his high school diploma. A guard brings Andy his food in solitary confinement and tells him that Tommy passed with a C+ average.
One night, Norton calls Tommy into a dimly lit alley and offers him a cigarette, before telling him that Andy's situation is keeping him up at night and that he needs to be sure that Tommy is telling the truth before he can move forward with it. Tommy insists that he is sure it is the truth, and Norton stubs out his cigarette before signaling to a guard to shoot Tommy dead.
Norton visits Andy in solitary and tells him that they had to kill Tommy because he was trying to escape, feigning contrition all the while. "We just have to put it behind us, move on," he says. When Andy tries to resist Norton's evil ways, Norton threatens to take him out of his part of the prison, stop ensuring protection from the guards, and destroy his hard-won library. As he leaves, he tells the guard to keep Andy in solitary for another month.
When Andy finally gets out, Red goes to him in the prison yard. "My wife used to say I was hard to know, like a closed book. Complained about it all the time," Andy says. He tells Red that while he did not physically kill his wife, he drove her away emotionally, which is what ultimately killed her. "That don't make you a murderer...a bad husband maybe. Feel bad about it if you want to, but you didn't pull the trigger," says Red, to comfort him.
Andy and Red talk about if they will ever get out of prison, and Andy tells him about his dreams of living in Zihuatanejo, a coastal town in Mexico, and opening a hotel. "They say it has no memory. That's where I want to live for the rest of my life," Andy says. When he tells Red he wants him to come there with him, Red says that he doesn't think he could make it on the outside. "I'm an institutional man now," he says, explaining that he would be overwhelmed by the demands and scale of the world. Suddenly, Red gets frustrated with Andy, telling him that his dreams are useless, and Andy walks away, resigned.
When Red stops him, Andy asks Red a favor. If Red ever gets out of prison, Andy wants him to go to an oak tree in Buxton (where he asked his wife to marry him), find a black volcanic rock and dig up what's buried underneath.
At lunch, Red tells the men that Andy is acting strange since confinement. Heywood tells the men that Andy came to him asking for a rope and he gave it to him, and the men worry that he might be trying to kill himself.
That evening, Norton checks in on Andy to see if he's done filling out financial paperwork for his money laundering operation. When he leaves, Andy shines Norton's shoes alone in the office, before being brought back to his cell. Red narrates in voiceover that that night was the longest of his life.
The next morning, the prisoners come out of their cells, but Andy is nowhere to be seen. The guards angrily storm towards his cell, shocked to find that he's gone. Meanwhile, Norton opens his shoebox to find that his shoes have been swapped out for some old beat up shoes.
Analysis
In the beginning of this section of the film, the drama seems to smooth itself out and a quainter, more wholesome narrative emerges. With characters like the "Sisters" banished from the prison and Andy well acclimated to his life behind bars, tensions level out and what emerges is a portrait of camaraderie and brotherhood. Having found his calling as an educator and wise man in his community, Andy helps the cocky young Tommy Williams make something of himself and get an education. Tonally, the film becomes more of a buddy movie than a prison drama.
This slower, less dramatic turn in the narrative is, as Red tells us, a function of the structure of prison life. Red informs us that it is important for the men to keep their minds occupied during prison life, and that Andy in particular feels most purposeful when he has a project of some kind, whether it is building the prison's library, carving chess pieces out of stone, or helping Tommy Williams better himself. Thus, we learn that while the pace of the film may have slowed down, the stakes are high; if it were not for these small, quotidian projects, the men would lose their minds.
The smaller concerns of prison daily life do not take over the narrative for very long, as Tommy's revelation that he knows the man who actually killed Andy's wife throws everything into disarray. What seems like a chance for Andy to finally win his freedom turns into a horrible tragedy when he actually brings the case to the warden, Norton. The depths of Norton's malevolence are finally revealed when he dismisses Andy's pleas for another trial and has Tommy killed for bringing the information to light in the first place. In a disturbing turn of events, we learn that Norton is more motivated by keeping attention away from his prison (and his nefarious financial dealings) than he is in seeing justice served and helping an honest inmate.
After two months in solitary confinement, Andy faces some of his darkest demons. In a conversation with Red after getting released, he explains that he was emotionally closed with his wife, which is what ultimately drove her away from him and got her killed. While he did not physically kill her, he feels the weight of responsibility for his death, a remorse for not being able to show his love for her and keep her close. For the first time in the film, we see some of Andy's pathos, his fear that his emotional frigidity and stoicism is harmful to those around him.
The injustice of Tommy's death and the abandoned trial for his wrongful conviction sends Andy over the edge. After two months in solitary confinement, he has retained his calm and cool demeanor, but he is also markedly changed. His fellow prisoners cannot tell if he is suicidal or bent on escape, but he is not behaving the way he normally does.
