Pick a Scene

A scene that stuckout for me in Shawshank Redemption is the final scene where Red goes in to ask for parol and finally gets approved. Throughout the entire movie, he goes before the council multiple times to ask to be let out from his life sentence early and be put on parol. They ask him a series of questions, one of which being "do you think you're rehabilitated." In previous sessions, he always answered the same way: yes. In this scene though, Red goes before them and when they ask him the same question, he gives a different response. He confronts the man by asking what that word even truly means. He says that he thinks its a made up word for people like him to have a job. He goes on to say that what he think the guy should be asking is if he is sorry for what he did. And Red obviously explains that "theres not a day that goes by that I don't feel sorry for what I did." Through his speech he expresses how hes changed and what he's learned from the situation and by simply not answered "yes" to his question, Red was approved for Parol. Theres nothing that I don't understand, but I do wonder what it was that changed Reds response. After every time him giving the same exact answer, what was it that made him say something different? I think it was Andy, and him escaping, and just in general the way that he influenced him throughout their stay in prison. The way that this contributes to my essay would be exactly what Red was saying. This man sits there and from one or two questions, hes suppose to be able to rightfully judge if prisoners are ready to reenter the world? From one answer their suppose to be able to see if they've learned their lesson. But thats not the way it should be. Prisons should have people watching behavior and seeing if these guys's actions show that they've learned their lesson. Obviously actions speak louder then words and asking one or two mundane questions isn't going to reveal anything about anyone. Red just happened to stand up for himself and speak out against the guy and somehow that got him parol? That just doesn't make sense. If he never had the courage to lash back against him he probably would have never been granted parol. This definetly contributes to the corruption as the state just pays some guy to sit there and ask them one question and base their freedom off of it, which is so wrong. Also it contribues to the message about feeling free even in a prison because he obviously came to realize what he did and came to terms with it. And he came to terms with the fact that theres nothing he can do about it and as much as he wishes he could go back and tell his teenage self what a stupid idea it is, he knows that its too late. He knows that the old man who he is now is all thats left.

gray area
who makes the rules
commenting on the institution
apathy-dont care about them
failure of the system to do its duty