The Power of a Woman

Heartbreak can kill us in more ways than one. It can physically kill us from the stress upon what seems to be, at times, our weakest muscle. It can force us into a kind of spiritual death where we loose all faith or hope in anything. It can allure us with whispers of revenge and satisfaction into a mental death that pushes us past our breaking point in which we do things, terrible unimaginable things we never thought ourselves capable of. This is where we find Andy Dufresne. Desperate, alone, and in a drunken stupor, his heart swells with passionate hate and wrenching pain. His face shows no sign of alarm for what he is considering. Reaching for a sleek black pistol and strikingly ominous bullets, he throws back another swig of liquid courage. His wife has left him for another man and revenge swirls in his head clouding his judgment far worst than the liquor could manage. The scene is sprayed with glimpses of his court trial. We see Andy, now a distinguished, clam and remarkably handsome business man, convicted of a murder he chose not to commit and sent to prison to endure a life we dare not contemplate. Unknowingly, his wife stripped him of his freedom and left him for dead the day she broke her wedding vows. Women in The Shawshank Redemption appear to be of little importance but upon further inspection you can see that unforgivable internal death and rejuvenating awe inspiring life rest in their very bosom.

I find it intriguing that the two most imperative parts of the film include the internal death of Andy by his wife and the grace of life granted to him through the women in the posters. It vaguely reminds me of my own mother’s dire warning, “I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it.” Women play a very cunning role here. It can go without any notice at all. On the outside they appear to be normal but it’s the inside that’s key. We are to assume, by his reaction, that Andy had no idea his wife was cheating on him or even unhappy at all. She was sneaking around pretending to be something she wasn’t. The posters of the women are similar in that they are also holding on to a secret but appear to be an everyday picture hanging on the wall politely stating, ”Nothing underhanded happening here. Please move along.” As Andy works his way deeper into the tunnel the posters become increasingly risqué (mirroring the risk he is taking) and are commented on by the warden. They unlike his wife offer freedom and life.

We see his wife in the beginning allowing another man to caress her bosom and later see Andy in the very same position behind the bosom of the women in the posters tunneling to liberation. A woman’s breasts have always held life within them for her child but could it be possible that we also hold life within them for a man? Ask any man and I’m sure he would say that embracing or even resting upon a woman’s bosom brings about great peace and freedom from despair. Isn’t that what Andy finds on the other side of his voluptuous women? Even Red’s redemption awaits him at the place where Andy made love to his wife and asked for her hand in marriage.

As women we have untold of ability in contributing to the success or demise of our men. Andy’s wife took this fact for granite and ended up destroying both of their lives but as we can see in the movie, you can’t keep a good man down. Andy found other women to comfort him. Whether it was the opera singer whose voice lifted his sprits out of that dreadful place and held his sanity in the hole, the wife of the guard that provided a gateway to normalcy just by receiving a gift, the contractor’s wife whose pie ended up as a treat for them all or the movie stars that kept their loyalty to him even when hope seemed unimaginable, they all brought him hope, peace and freedom. Women often go about their duties unnoticed and unappreciated as was true in this movie but isn’t worth it to take another look at the women in our lives so that we may see their importance?