What freed Andy from Shawshank? - The Shawshank Redemption

     One of Stephen King's masterpiece, <The Shawshank Redemption>, was the movie and the book that I had recently. It is quite famous all over the world as one of the great prison-escaping story. Hearing that I have to read this book, I felt quite boring even before beginning to open the cover of this book because I knew the ending of such a famous story. However, there was more substances to watch besides the ending such as how Andy Dufresne makes firm decision to go out. After finishing reading this book, I had a lot of questions flowing on my mind. I also had feelings and rational thoughts carved in my heart.
     First question that came very first inside me was "Was Andy planning to escape all the time?" Red at the very beginning gives Andy the rock-hammer which is later used as a tool to escape the prison by making a hole. From the description of Red about Andy, it can be inferred that Andy had a lot of complaints and felt unfair about the judgement. However, I don't think Andy always wanted to escape. Even though at first he had problems adjusting to the prison life, such as trouble with Sisters, he endeavored so much through his years and with his specialty in giving a financial aid, he spends quite satisfying life as he helps and gets protection from the prison warden, Samuel Norton. He even becomes librarian as he wished. He was very renowned among prisoners and guards. Those days, at least to me, seemed happy for Andy. Do you think Andy was still thinking about escape in this moment? I guess not. He had innovated the prison, he had shown to many people that one idealistic man can change dirty reality, and became people's role model. Even though his physical situation may be harsh, his mental situation and relationship with others were delightful for Andy. From my prospective, Andy might have felt a lot of things at this moment and his heart would have been burdened because of his own conscience and disappointment that other prisoners get when they hear news of him. Probably Andy might have just stopped making a hole for a while.
     Then, for what reason Andy once again decided to escape at last? It might not only be a coincidence that his escaping plan has been execute not long after emergence of Tommy and greedy refusal of his retrial by Norton. One day Tommy was shown up to Andy and said that he knows the real sinner for Andy's crime. Andy then asks Norton for retrial and Norton just ignores him and put him on solitary confinement because he is afraid of Andy blowing up his secrets. He is now bare with no protection and no fame. He once again have been treated unfairly. And this might be the major reason for his redemption.
     Now, the most important question relies on our hand driven by above works. What freed Andy from Shawshank really? Was it rock-hammer? Was it his firm will? My answer is "it was prison that freed Andy from prison." Even though Andy came to prison unfairly, he tried to adjust living in prison. But it was prison that refused his will. Prison was comprised of the prisoners and the guards. The prisoners, especially Sisters, bullied Andy a lot. At the same time, the guards, especially Norton, bullied Andy, despite Andy's financial aid. Both the prisoners and guards were rotten ethically, and pulled away Andy from Shawshank. It was not Andy refusing the prison, but it was the whole prison that was refusing Andy.
      Because of this aspect, I really loved reading this book. For most escaping stories, only protagonist is who makes escaping, but <Shawshank Redemption> was somewhat special story in the aspect that the prison is refusing Andy rather than Andy refusing the prison. He certainly once tried to adjust, and it was the prison that blocked his efforts. By these flow of plots, it certainly made me to advocate the protagonist, Andy. Because I was able to deeply understand Andy's actions, I was able to be absorbed more, and this is the main reason why I would recommend this book to others.

Structural Violence in Education is Killing Everyone!

Movie <Three Idiots>. For more information, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_Idiots

   In the movie <Three Idiots>, there comes out the scene where Rancho (protagonist) asks about the gender of the baby of his girlfriend's sister. He gets answer as, "the baby is an engineer." The engineer simply means that the baby is a male. On the film it says that because parents in India want their son to be an engineer and their daughter to be a doctor, people alludes their baby's gender by saying the one is "engineer" or "doctor". Throughout the running time, the movie depicts on the enforcement of parents about their sons' life. Since many Indians are poor and engineering is a job that can bring relatively big money, it hits Indians' mind and results eager desire of Indians to force their sons to get education about engineering. It happens similarly in all over the world. The school education system, which is located between parents and children, function as the assailant of structural violence and the victim of structural violence at the same time.
   Before I go on to my reasons, I feel necessity of giving a definition of structural violence. Structural violence, according to context.org by Robert Gilman, is a physical and psychological harm that results from unjust social, political and economic systems. In other words, structural violence is referred to as a harm that comes from the society. So by mean school gets structural violence and gives structural violence to students, it is saying that school is receiving a violence from the society and is giving a violence to students.
   First, the school education system receives the structural violence in the relationship with parents. In other words, the school education system becomes victim of structural violence when with parents. Parents are the representation and reflection of the society. Society requires people to have different jobs. Some jobs are more important while other jobs are less important. Depending on the job's importance on the society, people get different payments. People of course wants to get a job with higher payment. Their spirit goes down same to the education of their sons. In order to meet those desires, students have to be ranked in order to diversify the range to differentiate jobs. School education is thus forced to be the place for the competition. Need for rank and competition by parents and society drives the school education system to go far away from creativity.

    Second, the school education system, which was the victim in relationship with parents and society, now works as an assailant in relationship with students. Because school education is forced to be competitive, school has to grade the achievement of understanding of the students about subjects. School education is thus forced to be objective, having no space for creativity. To be objective about grade, school rather focuses more on the accuracy of the fact, rather than students' opinions in individuals.
    To sum up, the school education system is the assailant of structural violence and the victim of structural violence at the same time. We can't really criticize schools for doing so, since the problems about killing students' creativity relies fundamentally on the structural violence that society has harmed schools. Therefore, in order for schools to encourage students to have creativity, society itself must be changed. That is, our preference about the particular job based on high payment should be adjusted to change the school education system.

Inevitable Game for All Human Beings: Trying to Forget Painful Memories.

“It's hard to win, easy to lose
We play a game we cannot choose
As steady as a rocking horse, as subtle as a bruise.”

- from Oi Va Voi’s song titled “Waiting”

Sometimes forgetting painful memories is as important as remembering delightful memories. It helps us to focus on the present days, and not to be gloomy and desperate. For three reasons, Forgetting painful memories can possibly be adressed as the “game” that I play.

 First of all, above lyrics says that the “game” is “hard to win, easy to lose”. Forgetting painful memories might seem easy at the first glance, but it is not. Without notice, the painful memories come to our heart and make us regret what we have done in the past. It is hard to resist those emotions once we get caught up in the painful memories. It is more painful because those regrets not only come from our brain with rational thoughts, but also come from out heart with vague emotion. Thinking rationally, one should not be bothered about what happened in past, but because regret comes from heart, it isn’t easy to get rid of.

 Second, forgetting painful memories is something we cannot choose to play. It’s not something that one can get rid of anytime since it is a life-long game. It is like a destiny that is given to all human beings. We naturally recall the past unconsciously, and to omit painful memories has to be done consciously. Natural conflict between our consciousness and unconsciousness is what forgetting painful memories really is and forgetting painful memories is inevitable game.

 Third, forgetting painful memories is “as steady as a rocking horse, as subtle as a bruise.” By the meaning “as steady as a rocking horse”, forgetting painful memories is an endless game. There are times we fail to forget, and times we succeed to forget. But as a whole, it never ends. It stands at the same place all the time. Also, forgetting painful memories can be referred to as bruise in the way it harms people. A bruise is something that gives one the pain, but it is not as serious as a wound. It is same for forgetting too. When one loses this “game” (recalling painful memories), it is usually not so harmful to ruin one’s life. However, it still mentally disturbs one’s life, like a subtle bruise. In those ways, this “game” is “as steady as a rocking horse, as subtle as a bruise.”

 Will human be able to escape from losing this game ever? As long as humans have brain to store memories, forgetting desperate memories will remain as the life-long game. To sum up, for above reasons, forgetting desperate memories can be inferred as the "game" that the above lyric says.