Different Seasons

Red remarks that Andy has a unique ability to sustain a sense of inner peace and faith that his incarceration would someday end. He always seemed to have a sense of hope. That hope is tested when Andy encounters a fellow convict, Tommy Williams, who once shared a cell with one Elwood Blatch who told Tommy that he had killed Glenn Quentin and Glenn’s lover, and the woman’s husband had been convicted of the crime. When Tommy meets Andy, he realizes that Andy is the innocent husband.

Andy takes the information to the warden, a religious hypocrite who is the most corrupt of all the wardens yet. The warden doesn’t want to lose Andy’s money-laundering services, so he transfers Tommy to another prison, blocks all Andy’s options, and threatens to close the library and remove all Andy’s protection from the Sisters if he tries to re-open his case. Andy gives up, and for the next four years he appears to lose the hope that has sustained him.

Andy eventually overcomes his malaise and returns to his former equanimity. He continues his rock-polishing hobby, and he has been at Shawshank for 19 years when Red gets him a new rock hammer. Half of the prison yard has been paved over with asphalt, but Red notes that Andy must be finding enough rocks to satisfy himself because Red often sees him tossing pebbles into the yard.

One day, Andy tells Red about Zihuatanejo, a town on the Pacific coast of Mexico. He tells Red that the Mexicans say that the Pacific has no memory. Andy wants to spend the rest of his life running a little tourist hotel and taking his guests fishing. Andy makes a point of repeating the name Zihuantanejo twice and making sure that Red will remember it. He gives specific directions.

Red asks where Andy is going to get the money to buy his fabulous hotel. Andy tells Red that there are two kinds of men: those who assume that nothing bad will ever happen and those who hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Andy knew that there was always the chance that he would be convicted despite his innocence. He arranged to set up a false identity by the name of Peter Stevens. A close friend invested the money in the name of Peter Stevens. It now amounts to $370,000.

Astounded, Red asks why Andy didn’t use the money to hire a lawyer and private detectives to get him out. Andy replies that he can’t get access to Peter Stevens’s money from inside Shawshank, and his friend—who could have done it for him—has died. There is still a way, however. Andy tells Red about a field in the town of Buxton. At the foot of the wall, there is a piece of volcanic glass that Andy used to use as a paperweight. There is a key underneath it to a safe deposit box. Everything that Andy needs to get at his money is in the box.

Red says that it will be years before Andy is paroled and free to get his new identity and his money. Andy replies that it will, but not as long as the state and warden think it will. He remarks casually that running his hotel would be easier if he had someone like Red with him who knows how to get things. Red replies that he wouldn’t be able to get along on the outside. In Shawshank, he knows his way around, but out there, he wouldn’t have the connections–he wouldn’t know how to live outside. Andy tells him that he underestimates himself. Andy thinks Red is a remarkable man and tells him to think it over.

Later, Red thinks to himself that Andy has a way of making people feel free. Red doesn’t think that he can ever wear the cloak of freedom the way Andy does. The whole idea of Zihuantanejo seems ridiculous, yet that night, Red dreams about the rock at the foot of the wall. He tries to pick it up, but it is too heavy, and bloodhounds are coming nearer.

Red goes into the subject of prison breaks. They happen from time to time, but the prisoners who go over the wall are stupid. They are virtually always caught. Escaped prisoners are just too obvious. Red knows of only a few who got away, and each time it was like winning the lottery. Counting back, Red thinks that there may have been as many as 10 who made it, and he suspects most of them are back in other prisons; convicts lose the ability to cope with the wide-open spaces outside and sometimes have a conscious or unconscious need to commit a stupid crime to get back inside where they know how to get along. Red counts himself as one of those, but after the Mexico conversation, Red begins to believe that Andy might have a chance.

Andy escapes from Shawshank in 1975 and disappears, never to be recaptured. Red believes that Andy Dufresne no longer exists, but somewhere in Zihuantanejo lives Peter Stevens. One morning, Andy is gone. The warden, in a raging temper, tears down the poster over Andy’s bed and uncovers a hole in the 10-foot-thick concrete wall. Buried in the wall, the guards find a sewer pipe big enough for a man to squeeze through if he can stand the stink and the claustrophobia. A few months after the escape, Red receives a postcard from Texas and knows it means that Andy has gotten at least that far.

Later, Red reflects on all the confluences of luck that must have come together: the patience, the emotional strain, everything that Andy had to do to keep the guards from looking behind the poster. He concludes that the gods must have been looking after Andy. He tells the reader that Andy represents the part of himself and of everyone that is free and full of hope. Andy just used that part of himself better than the rest of them. Red is glad Andy is free, but the world feels darker and grayer as a result. In his heart, he asks Andy to touch the sand, feel the water, and look at the stars for him.

Two years after Andy’s escape, Red takes up the story again. He has been paroled. He still feels disoriented. The world seems too big, too luxurious, too free—as if he is constantly in free fall. Things move too fast. He’s actually considered committing some stupid crime just to get back where he feels safe. The thing that stops him is the thought of Andy; if he kicked away his freedom, he would feel it was a betrayal of everything that Andy had to do to escape.

Finally, Red starts hitchhiking to Buxton and looking for the rock wall and the piece of volcanic glass about which Andy told him. One day, he finds it. He hesitates to pick it up at first, fearing there will be nothing underneath. Finally, he lifts it and finds an envelope underneath, addressed to him and containing a thousand dollars and a letter. Andy invites Red to find him. Andy will keep an eye out in case he does. He reminds Red that hope is a good thing and that good things never die.

Red makes up his mind to follow Andy to freedom, led by hope. He hopes that he can make it across the border and hopes that he can find Andy and shake his hand.