4. Stephen King: Brief Biography
• King was born in Portland, Maine, and except for his
elementary school years, he lived much of the rest of his life
there. He received a B.A. in English from the University of
Maine at Orono in 1970, prepared to teach high school
English. A draft board examination immediately post-
graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure,
limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.
• King ended his high-school teaching career with the success of
Carrie, Published in 1974.
5. Genre
• King is best known for writing Horror, but he does venture into
a more mainstream genre with some of his novels and stories.
King himself compares his writing to medieval morality plays
[allegorical drama popular in Europe especially during the
15th and 16th centuries, in which the characters personify
moral qualities (such as charity or vice) or abstractions (as
death or youth) and in which moral lessons are taught.] The
Green Mile, for example, is often referred to as both a tragedy
and a morality play. I will leave you to figure out if Shawshank
fits the description of a morality play.
6. Historical Context
• Alcatraz operated as a prison from 1934 to 1963. A little over
1,500 men were housed there during its relatively brief stint as
one of America’s most notorious prisons. One of the more
famous prisoners was Robert “Birdman” Stroud who got his
nickname while in prison at Leavenworth. Stroud became an
ornithologist while at Leavenworth and became very well-
known in birding circles, though few knew he was a prisoner
for much of the time. Stroud was an avid reader and lived
much of his life in solitary confinement. Books and birds were
his best friends.
• Stroud may be the inspiration for King’s character, Brooks
Hatlen, the only other prisoner we meet with a college degree.
7. Historical Context: The Great
Escape
• One summer night in 1962, Frank Morris, John Anglin, and
Clarence Anglin escaped from Alcatraz. They chiseled away
sections of the wall around the air vent in the rear of their cells
with the handles of steel spoons. While inmates played
instruments loudly at a concert, Morris and the Anglin brothers
broke through the backs of their cells and into the utility
tunnel. They climbed the pipes and made it to the roof of
Alcatraz prison. They launched into the San Francisco Bay in a
raft made of prison raincoats. Some think that one or more of
them escaped to Central or South America due to their library
records and attempts to learn Spanish. More think they
drowned.
11. • Who is the narrator?
• How did the first-person narrative
affect the story?
• Why does the author choose to tell the
story through Red’s eyes and not
Andy’s?
• Is he reliable? Why or why not?
• The readers can’t know the truth
because we only hear the story from
Red’s narration of Andy’s narration and
other sources. Yet, in the story Red
swears that Andy is telling the truth
about being an innocent man. It’s up to
the readers to decide whether Andy is
innocent or not
13. • Hope
• Red on the other hand did murder but he has a chance to redeem himself
and takes Andy’s advice, “hope is a good thing.”
• Red’s description of Andy is that “there was none of that sullen desperation
about him that seems to afflict most lifers after awhile; you could never
smell hopelessness on him.”
• Corruption
• How does “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” by Stephen
King depict the correctional system through the narrator Red?
• Crime
• Red readily admits to the murders he committed and he knows he deserves
to be in prison.
• When we first get introduced to Andy we learn that he was charged for the
murder of his wife and her lover. However, we also learn through Red’s
narration that Andy denies ever committing the murders, and that he was
just an unlucky guy.
• Isolation and Imprisonment
• Time
Themes/Concepts:
14. Symbols
• Rita Hayworth
• What does the poster of Rita Hayworth and the other women
symbolize?
• Why does [the Rita Hayworth poster] get a place in the title?
• Andy Dufresne
• What is Andy Dufresne is symbolic of and what does he represent to
Red and to the rest of the inmates at Shawshank?
• Warden Norton
• Warden Norton represents the faults of the prison system.
• The Bird
• What did Sherwood Bolton’s bird, Jake, represent? What did it
symbolize when the Red found it dead after it had been released?
• Rocks
16. HOMEWORK
Read Bloom’s “Trauma
Theory Abbreviated”
Read Balaev’s “Trends
in Literary Trauma
Theory”
Post # 18: QHQ Bloom
or Balaev
Work on Essay #2: Due
Wednesday, week 9
before class.
