The Shawshank Redemption

Discuss the imagery and symbolism of Andy’s emergence from the sewer line at the end of the film.

Discuss the imagery and symbolism of Andy's emergence from the sewer line at the end of the film

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Near the end of the film, we see a flashback of Andy carving his name in his cell wall, when suddenly a chunk of it falls onto the ground. In voiceover, Red describes Andy's escape, "Geology is the study of time and pressure. That's all it takes really...pressure...and time. That and a big goddamn poster." We see Andy in flashback bringing the debris from the hole he is digging and surreptitiously dropping it in the prison yard. Then we see him in flashback on the night of his escape, switching out a file and a Bible of Norton's for his own and putting on Norton's shoes as his own. We then see him climbing through the hole he has built and escaping the prison with a bag of his belongings attached to his foot. He breaks a plumbing pipe and climbs through it to the river outside the prison, ripping off his clothes when he reaches freedom and throwing up his arms in the rain.

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