Spoiler commetns on "The Shawshank Redemption."

Don't bother with your in depth study into the histories and structures of religion to just end up realizing one simple truth - Christianity is uniquely true.

Anyway, back to Shawshank, we finally agree on something Norton makes my blood boil too. He is the ultimate example of selfishness, abusing power and other people only for his gain. It is sickening.

Quote: FrGamble

Don't bother with your in depth study into the histories and structures of religion to just end up realizing one simple truth - Christianity is uniquely true.

If I wanted to study the Moon, I would not begin with the assumption that it's made of cheese.

Quote:

Anyway, back to Shawshank, we finally agree on something Norton makes my blood boil too. He is the ultimate example of selfishness, abusing power and other people only for his gain. It is sickening.

How is he selfish? The man depends on other people to do anything. I don't say he employs the talents of others to help himself, but that he steals the work of other people to get anything at all. That's why he throws a tantrum when Andy escapes. He's totally helpless without Andy.

Then, too, he wallowed in self-destructive practices. As a warden he should have known better than to cover up one crime (graft) by committing another (murder). Selfish people don't destroy themselves.

Quote: Nareed

If I wanted to study the Moon, I would not begin with the assumption that it's made of cheese.

That is an awesome response!

Quote:

Selfish people don't destroy themselves.

That is pretty much the definition of suicide, the ultimate selfish act.

Quote: FrGamble

That is pretty much the definition of suicide, the ultimate selfish act.

It's the ultimate desperate act, not selfish.

It is that too and also the saddest act. Suicide has deeply touched my family and I call it a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It is also the ultimate act of despair.

Quote: FrGamble

That is an awesome response!

Thank you.

Quote:

That is pretty much the definition of suicide, the ultimate selfish act.

My views on suicide can be found here: http://diversitytomorrow.com/thread/1056/0/

In the case of Norton, it was clearly cowardice. He was more afraid of the consequences than of death. To a certain degree he even had a good point. If he'd wound up incarcerated in Shawshank, he could look forward to a short, nasty, brutish life, or a lifetime in solitary, or worse a long, nasty and brutish life.

I wonder whether his suicide gives Hadley a better or a worse case.

Coincidentally a coworker brought up this movie yesterday (In Spanish the title translates as "Dream of Freedom" <roll-eyes>).

We got to talking about it and I thought of something: I don't recall a single moment in the movie that made me laugh.

Sure, it's a very serious, very heavy drama. But there should be one funny scene or two. There are a few that made me smile, like the guards in baseball uniforms holding their tax receipts and standing in line. And I did chuckle when the warden reads Andy's note "Salvation lies within it."

As you mention, I also tend to smile a lot. And there are no funny scenes.

It's a very deep, serious, drama.

I DO tend to shed a tear when Red meets Andy on the beach at the end...

Stephen King is not a laugh riot. Any funny scenes
in The Shining or Carrie or Christine?

Quote: Evenbob

If you can believe G Gordon Liddy, and I do,
his experience was that most guards are dumb
as a bag of hammers. It's the lowest of low
jobs, you voluntarily spend every day in prison.
Sure you can go home, but you still have to deal
with people who hate your guts and want you
dead, because to them you symbolize why they're
in prison. Only really stupid people could do the
job without it bothering them.

COs are a mixed lot. Some couldn't make the cut as cops for one reason or another so took another law enforcement job. Some didn't want to be cops for one reason or another so went the CO route. Others like being able to tell people what to do. And yet others are simply big goons who can handle themselves and it is a government job. Lots in-between of course.

Guy I was co--manager with for a few weird months was an amateur study in corrections so he loved going on the services to the prisons, which he bid low to get for the same reason. He liked talking to the COs but he summed them up this way, "All they talk about is two things, first is how much OT they can pull that month and the other is how long until they can go on pension. And guys in their 20s know to the month how long to pension as soon as you ask them."

Prisons are just for people who need to pass time because they can't handle life.