Brooks had been imprisoned for more than 2/3 of his entire life. So had Red. Both were murderers. Both were young men as they entered prison, hard as the entered, broken as they left.
One commits suicide upon his discharge from prison, and the other barely averts it.
What made the difference? What decided Brooks' fate versus Red's? That is the thought of the day...
Both men, upon entering the big wide world after their prison discharge, find it a terribly scary place. For one thing, their "institutionalized" minds are used to structure, uniformity, and an authority to make decisions for them. The world, and its constituent freedoms, pose a daunting challenge for these men. How will they regain intellectual autonomy? Moral autonomy?
Brooks talks about wanting to commit another robbery, just so that he can go back "home". He associates the prison with safety = a known environment, a known set of standards and rules. I think we can learn something from this. People fear the unknown. This isn't a deep insight on my part, but a time-tested and proven fact of nature.
Red fears the unknown too. How does one find their way in a dark room? You have to start with some kind marker, something to identify with, something to give you direction. What makes the difference between these two men? Well...
The difference is that Red chose the compass, while Brooks chose the gun. When Red is shown (in the movie) strolling by the Pawn Shop, he stops to look in the window. He sees a gun (a way out, escape from "being afraid all the time") and he sees a compass (a symbol of retaining hope and "going for it"). Red says to himself, "hell with it, get busy livin', or get busy dyin' [symbolically]," by choosing the compass. But why?
Simple answer: there is no compass there for Brooks. Brooks hangs himself because he has no alternative. He is afraid of the unknown, and short of returning to the known, "safe" world of prison, he opts instead for choosing the known, "safe" escape from fear--death itself.
Both men came to the same place--a beam. To one man, it represented a foundation, a marker, a place to start. He writes, "Brooks was here" to show any/all who care that he wasn't just a transitory, soulless creature, but a human being. Another man (Red) sees the beam, and it represents a tombstone--his friend's eulogy.
Red had hope because Andy had hope. Brooks did not have Andy in his life. Red had a compass because Andy left him a direction (north end of the field, big oak tree...). Brooks had no place to go from that beam, and nothing to help him find his way. Andy represents a sort of Savior to Red. But Andy is no demi-god, no deity...only a man who refused to be broken as Red had. Generally, people call this sort of thing "pride," but Andy shows us that pride and sin are sometimes equivocated as "hope". That we can choose to be strong, and that we must.
Stephen King published "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" in a set of four novellas entitled, Different Seasons. This story was meant to be the "Spring" of those seasons--a time of change and hope. Red showed us that man can come to a place of fear, encircled by the unknown, and can choose to find his own way. He can stare in the face of death, in the face of fear, and not blink...but instead, smile. He could smile because he could see his friend smiling. And his friend could smile because he never let them break him.
"Brooks was here."
"Red was too."
I think there is something deep here to what King was showing us: What tombstone will we leave behind? How much hope will we spread? How do we handle fear, and the unknown? How many of us have a compass, or directions, versus a rope or a gun? We will all lose our way, at some point in our lives. What then?
How many of us read the tombstones of those gone on before? Which tombstones do we stay at a while? Which do we identify with? Does it comfort us to hold death as "the great unknown" or fill us with fear? How many of us need certainty and a homogeneous worldview?
Sum quod eris / Fui quod sis
Non sum qualis eram
________________
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Shawshank, Philosophy
