Author | Fan Deng Reading · Wendy
Anchor | Fan Deng Reading · Yang Gun Gun
Interpret the trailer
Meet · Meet your unknown self in the book.
Good evening to all book lovers, welcome to the reading column "Encounter" produced by Fan Deng Reading.
The British writer Clive Barker once said:
"Every American family owns two books, one is the Bible, and the other is probably Stephen King's The Shawshank Redemption."
This book has accompanied countless people through the most difficult days of their lives.
Today I would like to share with you Stephen King's outstanding masterpiece, "The Shawshank Redemption".
Despite life's hardships, as long as there is hope in our hearts, we still have a choice.
I often ask: "How should I spend the low period of life?" ”
GaoZan replied:
"Like the weeds in the wasteland, trampled by thousands of ravages and trampled without dying, alive, waiting for the opportunity, he re-enters the battlefield day by day."
Writer Lin Qingxuan once said: "If life is a banquet, sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, and salty are the various tastes in life." ”
All tastes are life, and only after tasting them do you know the deep meaning.
For Andy, the protagonist of "The Shawshank Redemption", the sudden prison disaster is the beginning of his bitter life.
But with amazing perseverance, he dug a tunnel to freedom in 19 years, successfully escaped from prison, and tasted the sweetness of a long-lost life.
Author Stephen King has revealed:
"I spend more energy on this book than any other book."
Life is ups and downs, freedom is in the high, growth is in the trough.
There is a saying that the weak are self-trapped, and the strong save themselves.
Revisiting the classics, I had an epiphany of the unspoken rules of adulthood: in the trough, in addition to self-crossing, others can not help.
In trouble, do not complain
The male protagonist, Andy, is the vice president of a bank and has a bright future.
He was upset and resentful when he learned that his wife had cheated on a golf coach and was divorcing him.
He was so drunk that he even loaded the bullet into the gun. Coincidentally, his wife and lover were shot that night.
Although he did not kill anyone, the bullets scattered on the ground and fragments of wine bottles were stained with his fingerprints, and he was powerless to say.
Andy was eventually sentenced to prison, and his life was suddenly in an unprecedented predicament.
If you say how spirited he was before he went to prison, how embarrassed he was after he went to prison.
Enter the dark cell, lose your freedom, eat inferior meals that are difficult to swallow, and face the hopeless sentence.
Not only that. In prison, several ill-intentioned people take a fancy to Andy and constantly trouble him.
For this reason, Andy was often beaten to the point that his nose was blue and his face was swollen, and his body was scarred.
But he never gave in and insisted on resisting.
In the eyes of fellow inmate Red, Andy was calm and restrained, "His pace and conversation were simply out of the ordinary, he was like walking in a park, carefree, as if he was wearing an invisibility cloak." ”
Even if he applied for parole again and again, and was rejected each time, he never complained, his face was always light and breezy, and he worked hard every day.
Maybe he also had moments on the verge of collapse, but there seemed to be a tenacity in his heart.
It was a kind of calm and hope that the long doom would one day end.
Some people say that the heart can hold a difficult life, and the eyes can retain the clouds and light wind.
In life, people in difficult situations are everywhere.
How many people, faced with pressures such as career failure, marital crisis, confusion in life or children's education, constantly complain about the unfairness of fate and lament the impermanence of the world.
But there are also some people who regard difficulties as experiences and tests, do not get angry or complain, open roads in every mountain, build bridges in water, are not afraid of difficulties, and are more ambitious than the clouds.
A writer once said: "When a person reaches a certain age, he must be that roof, and he can no longer find another place to hide from the rain." ”
No one will be smooth sailing.
In the face of difficulties, instead of complaining about the darkness, it is better to carry the lamp forward.
In a difficult situation, do not complain in order to walk steadily.
In the trough, charge up
Overnight, he became a prisoner of the order, and for Andy, there was no chance to defend himself.
The huge gap in life, the bullying and insults from other inmates, the despair of repeatedly rejecting applications for parole, and other people have long been in pain.
But Andy didn't, even if he created people, he didn't give up on himself, didn't complain, and didn't sink.
But unexpectedly, fate made Andy suffer another blow.
A prisoner named Tommy shows up, who knows the real killer of Andy's wife and can act as a witness to clear Andy's name.
This gave Andy hope and the light of a new lease of life.
But soon, this light was extinguished by the selfish warden Norton.
He orders Tommy to be shot, and no one in the world can prove that Andy is innocent.
Some people say that in the darkest part of life, if no one pulls you out of the abyss, you will be that person yourself.
After being locked up for 2 months, Many things, Andy figured out.
No one can be knocked down, except themselves. If he wants to regain his freedom one day, he can only accumulate strength in the present.
He began to use his professional skills again and again to find ways to rationalize tax avoidance for the warden and prison guards, and to guide them to invest.
With such scarce and important skills, he became a "model prisoner" in prison.
The result of his efforts was that his bullies were crippled by prison guards; he was transferred from laundry to prison library administrator; and he was placed in a single cell.
Using money and skill, he also dredged up the prison guards, and the beautiful woman posters posted on the wall were not moved by the prison guards.
All this has accumulated strength for him to successfully escape from prison in the future, have more chances of winning, and accumulate strength.
Andy in the book also mirrors us in reality.
Don't be discouraged when you're frustrated; don't give up when you're down.
Instead of waiting for the favor of the god of destiny, it is better to actively strive for it and silently accumulate strength.
In the trough, there will be no tomorrow. If you fall, don't lie on the ground for too long.
All the world is suffering, and only self-transit.
See adversity as a tempering before the transformation, calm your mind, bury your head in hard work, and even the hard days can survive the return to happiness.
With hope, life can break through the cocoon into a butterfly
For others in prison, in the long course of time, they have lost themselves and lost hope.
As Red said:
"Prison is a strange place. At first you hate him, then get used to it, and after a long time, you can't live without it. That is institutionalization. ”
When brooke was released from prison on parole, he spent fifty years in prison, unable to adapt to the outside world, and finally chose to end his life.
Sometimes it is not only the visible prison that traps people, but also the invisible shackles of the mind.
When they give up finding a way out, giving up their efforts and struggles, they are actually mentally imprisoned and sentenced to imprisonment.
Because without any hope, you will not be disappointed.
But Andy is different, there is a sentence in the book: "There is a bird that cannot be shut, and every feather of it is sprinkled with the radiance of freedom." ”
Andy is the bird who yearns for freedom all the time and has hope all the time.
He bought from Red a small stone hammer like a hawk-billed hoe and a large poster of a female star, ostensibly to carve the stone, but in fact, under the shade of the poster, digging a tunnel to freedom.
Not only did he have hope in his own heart, but he also tried to ignite the fire of hope in others.
In order to improve the spiritual life of his fellow inmates and make the prison a better place, he insisted on writing letters and applications for six years, and finally won funds for the expansion of the library.
He also taught knowledge, guided everyone to read books, and helped inmates get high Chinese.
Worried that Red would follow in his footsteps, he gave him an invitation to a new life.
It took him 19 years of persistence and hard work to finally regain his freedom and let his life break through the cocoon.
Nietzsche said:
"When one knows what one lives for, one can endure any kind of life."
Andy is the kind of person who knows what he lives for, and he always lives a meaningful life.
Everyone else's dreams are of horrific and brutal jailers and inmates, and his dreams are of the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean.
Because there was light in his heart guiding him, he was never truly imprisoned.
Only with hope can we truly be redeemed and liberated.
Write at the end
The poet Misuzu Kaneko said:
"Toward the bright side, even if it is only a measure of spaciousness, it must be in the direction of the sun."
At the end of the story, Andy is reborn from a dark prison, from a tunnel dug in 19 years, and struggling to climb through a 500-yard dirty sewage pipe.
From the life that seems to be exhausted at a glance, he patiently and tenaciously survives a future and finds a brilliant starry sky that belongs to himself.
In a letter to Red, Andy wrote:
"Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing in the world."
Perhaps, everyone, has a dark time.
As long as the glimmer of light in the heart is not extinguished, you will feel that life is not hopeless.
Believe that there is no night without dawn, and there is no endless suffering.
May everyone in their ordinary life, even if there is a storm, life will not give up.
Everyone can cross others and cross themselves, have hope, forge ahead, and can meet the beautiful.
Click "Watching" and encourage the book friends.
Author | Wendy: Loves to read, write, and is willing to write a good life with warm words.
Column Director | Come slowly
Typography | Zheng to the north
Image | The picture in this article comes from the official stills of "The Shawshank Redemption", which was invaded and deleted
Music | Kishibe Okuaki - November