Shawshank Redemption Movie Questions
The Shawshank Redemption: Movie Questions 1. A degradation ceremony is a ceremony in which people are stripped of their personal identities and thrown into a brand new situation; something that they have not experienced before. An example of this from the movie was when the men first arrived at Shawshank Prison at the beginning of the movie. As they were walking in, they were surrounded by the “experienced” convicts and teased. They were then stripped naked, covered in powder to make sure they did not have lice, and then forced to walk throughout the prison with everyone staring at them. No one should have to go through this, the act was humiliating enough. This degradation ceremony was like a welcoming to the new convicted felons, and a little hint of what their new life was going to entail living in Shawshank Prison. 2. Deviance can be defined as a violation of a social norm. This definition was obviously not uniform between the actions of the prison officials and the actual inmates. The officers believed that all of the inmates were deviant; otherwise they would not be in prison. They failed to realize that some of the inmates were in fact innocent, and wrongfully convicted of a crime. That was one stereotype. On the other side of things, if the officers showed any type of deviant behavior, they would not be punished. In fact, the warden approved of such behavior. An example of this occurred towards the beginning of the movie. The new inmate who started crying and was beaten to death by the prison officials. 3. The more time that Andy spent at Shawshank, the more he learned about the cultural norms. There was no “handbook” for Andy to read when he entered Shawshank. He was forced to learn everything the hard way. At first, he kept to himself, and did not speak much to the other inmates. This came off to his peers as being conceited. As he started to break out of his shell, he instantly connected with Red, a fellow inmate. They shared stories back and