Saturday, February 22, 2014

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption

            I mean, if there is a movie adaptation of a novel with a 9.3 rating on IMDb you know damn well it is a good book.Yes, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption is the chosen one for this month's book report. It's simply fantastic. And on that note, lets jump into the moral values in this book shall we?

             Moral Value #1: Hope Never Dies 
In an emotional climactic part of this book, Red, is feeling hopeless and thinking he may never get out of prison and thinking that if he ever does, he won't know how to live outside of the prison walls that he has lived in for many decades. Andy, responds... "There are places in this world that aren't made out of stone... there's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours... Hope." Andy then goes on to ask Red to go find something the he had hid before he got put in jail, but he wouldn't tell Red to give him something to hope for. In a letter that Andy writes to Red a bit later, he says "Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

             Moral Value #2:"Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying" 
During Red's feeling of hopelessness, Andy responds to Red by saying "You either get busy living or get busy dying." If you are not doing the things in your life that make you happy that allow you to truly live, then you are simply working on dying. If you aren't living life then you are truly dying inside. Do what makes you happy. Spend time with family and friends. Enjoy what you have while you have it, because someday it may be gone.

            Moral Value #3: "Persistence is key"
When people said it couldn't be done, Rocky Balboa trained harder. When Andy takes over as the prison librarian, he wants to expand the library. He goes to the warden and asks his permission to write to the state asking for funds. Although the warden says that they won't give him any money, he allows him to write anyway. Andy writes a letter a week for many years, and finally they sent him some money and some books. Not satisfied and feelings almost written off, he decides to write 2 letters a week and eventually has $500 a year donated to the prison library system (This was around the 1950s, so $500 was way more than it is today) 
Everyone told him it couldn't be done be he didn't care. He was rejected well over 100 times, but he still persisted and that persistence paid off.

              Audio book link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUWRuLF44aQ



Foo Zhiyi
4 Cergas
23 February 2014

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