Andy Dufresne In The Subject And Power

However, Andy Dufresne stands at the other extreme. He has been able to struggle his way through the dehumanizing incarceration techniques and dig out his way to escape. His resilience demonstrates what Foucault has emphasized in “The Subject and Power”: “At the very heart of power relationship… are the recalcitrance of the will and the intransigence of freedom” (790). Red admires Andy’s tenacity and even his collected demeanor, he avers: “I admired him. In spite of the problems he was having, he was going on with his life. There are thousands who don’t or won’t or can’t, and plenty of them aren’t in prison, either… his hands were still neat and clean, the nails well kept” (King 1983, 31). Andy’s mastering of the hobby of chipping, shaping and polishing rocks, turning them into fine pretty shapes, seems inspiring to many of the inmates, as Red maintains: “To us long-timers who knew Andy over a space of years, there was an element of fantasy to him, a sense, almost, of myth-magic” (King 1983, 39). Andy’s hobby acts as a seal that protects his mind against the encroachments of his oppressive environment which, in fact,

Andy is not the only one who strives to get around the suffocating prison restrictions. In spite of the powerful surveillance, Red also manages to wield his way through, by bribing the guards to secretly fetch contraband for his fellow prisoners. Red admits that “The prison administration knows about the black market… Sure they do. They probably know as much about my business as I do myself. They live with it because they know that a prison is like a big pressure cooker, and there have to be vents somewhere to let off steam” (King 1983, 38). His underhanded dealings could be regarded as another form of