Contents
Frank Darabont’s film is based on a novella by Stephen King. It tells the story of a man in a situation where every direct route is blocked. The walls are high, the guards brutal, the warden corrupt, the courts deaf. Andy Dufresne wins anyway, because he never attacks head-on. Almost every one of his moves is an example of the Indirect Approach.
A man without power
Situation
In 1947, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a young banker, is sentenced to two consecutive life terms for murdering his wife and her lover. He maintains his innocence. At Shawshank State Prison in Maine, he is a newcomer without friends. A group of inmates attacks him again and again. He befriends Red (Morgan Freeman), who can get things inside the prison.
Link to the principle
Andy has no power he could use. Against guards, violent inmates and the warden, any open resistance would be hopeless. If you are that weak, you have to go around the strength of others.
Protection through tax advice
Situation
During a work detail on a roof, Andy hears the brutal guard Hadley complaining about the taxes on an inheritance. Andy offers to secure the money for him legally. In return he asks only for beer for his fellow inmates. Soon other guards come to him for advice too, and Hadley makes sure the attacks on Andy stop.
Link to the principle
Andy does not fight the guards; he makes himself useful to them. His strength lies not in his body but in his head. He brings it into play where nobody expects it: in a conversation about taxes on a prison roof.
Letters instead of demands
Situation
Andy wants to expand the run-down prison library. He writes a letter to the state legislature every week. After years, a small check arrives with a box of old books, along with a request that he now stop. From then on, Andy writes twice a week. In the end Shawshank has one of the best prison libraries in the region, and Andy helps fellow inmates earn their high school diplomas.
Link to the principle
Andy does not attack the authorities. He relies on patience and persistence until it is easier for the other side to give in than to keep refusing. Here the indirect route is a long one.
When the direct route is closed
Situation
Warden Norton (Bob Gunton) uses Andy’s expertise to launder bribes. For this purpose Andy invents a person who does not exist, complete with ID papers and accounts. Then a young inmate, Tommy, arrives at the prison and knows who really committed the murders. Andy asks Norton for help in getting a new trial. Norton does not want to lose his money launderer. He has Andy thrown into solitary confinement and has Hadley kill Tommy, supposedly during an escape attempt.
Link to the principle
Andy tries the direct route once, the route through the law. It is shut by force. From this point on, only the detour remains. And as it turns out, Andy prepared it long ago.
The tunnel
Situation
One morning Andy’s cell is empty. Behind a large poster on the wall lies a tunnel that he has dug over almost two decades with a small rock hammer. On a stormy night he crawled through a sewer pipe to freedom. The next day, posing as the invented person, he withdraws Norton’s money from several banks and sends the evidence of the corruption to a newspaper. Hadley is arrested, and Norton takes his own life.
Link to the principle
This is the line of least expectation. Nobody expects a quiet banker to get through a wall with a tiny tool. Andy even uses his opponent’s own weapon, the invented person from Norton’s money laundering, to defeat him.
Key takeaways
Key lessons
- If you are weak, bring your own strength into play where nobody expects it.
- Make yourself useful to those who can be useful to you, instead of fighting them.
- Persistence is often the most effective detour.
- Prepare the indirect route before the direct one closes.
- Use what the opponent has created himself.
Summary
In “The Shawshank Redemption,” Andy Dufresne sits in prison for a crime he did not commit, without power and without justice. He wins protection through tax advice for the guards, a library through years of letters and, in the end, his freedom through a tunnel nobody suspects. He defeats the corrupt warden with the warden’s own tool. The film shows the Indirect Approach in the life of an individual: if you cannot break the other side’s strength, go around it.
Sources
- The Shawshank Redemption. Directed by Frank Darabont. U.S. 1994.
- Stephen King: Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. In: Different Seasons. New York: Viking 1982.
- Basil Henry Liddell Hart: Strategy. London: Faber & Faber 1954.
