Shawshank Redemption Case

Shawshank Redemption is the movie I choose to review and give some insights to its sociology points. The movie deals with de-socialization and re-socialization and really drives home some good points.

Socialization is known as a procedure that begins at birth and is continued through out your life. Andy sates in the movie that he always lived and walked the straight and narrow and had to come to prison to become a crook. Red a character in the movie continually tries to show himself as what the parole board wants to see and it seems he always gets turned down for parole. Then it shows his final parole hearing and he tells the board how he really feels and gets let out. So that tells me that you change according to the environment you are in and mold yourself into what fits at that time to make yourself blend in with your surroundings.

Every prisoner who entered Shawshank was de-socialized from the life that they knew before being sent to Shawshank and once released they have to attempt to re-socialize themselves with the outside world. A good example is when the character named Brooks is paroled he does not understand how much the world has changed since the time before he got arrested. He had been locked up for over 50 years. So when he is released he has a hard time readjusting to the outside world and finds himself of feeling all alone. He contemplates ways of getting locked back up so he can get back to the life he knows. He ends up committing suicide because he no longer feels he is a part of anything. The character Red states in the movie that "walls are funny first you hate them and then you love them". Once you have spent so much time behind bars you find yourself needing the comfort of those walls. Once locked up Red became the guy everyone depended on to get things, he found his niche and made it work for him. When he was released he was no longer the important man he was while in prison. He has been completely de-socialized