Being in prison, denied your liberty, it’s easy to see why anyone would try and escape. This feeling must be even worse when you are innocent of the crime and know you’re innocent and have been framed. It’s precisely what Andy Dufresne, the main character in the film the Shawshank redemption feels.
Andy’s escape plan is fraught with the dangers of being discovered. He establishes himself as a go-to guy for the inmates and the law enforcement officers throughout the institution. The warden uses Andy to find a way to launder money and then be creative with the Prisons accounts. The Warden is claiming extra funding. All of the guards and the warden are getting a kickback. When a new inmate admits to killing the people that Andy was framed for, Andy wants his case reopened and reinvestigated.
The Warden and his staff are in too deep with the scam for it to stop. The Warden rejects Andy’s request, and when Andy says he will expose the scam he threatens him with being moved to a place in the jail where the inmates will abuse him, put him in solitary confinement and then, finally, that he will burn down the library. Andy can’t bear the thought of this resource being lost to the inmates. The books represent a chance to escape in their minds, plus they can be used as a source of education so that they can get qualifications for when they leave.
Andy ups his escape plan. He makes sure that evidence is made available to the real authorities when the time comes. Andy only asks for two things when he is in jail. The first is a picture of the famous film actress Rita Hayworth. Red, his friend, provides it for him. Andy’s second item is a rock hammer and a rock polisher. There is some debate about whether Andy is allowed the use of the hammer as it could be a weapon. The deal is that as long as it doesn’t leave the cell, he can keep it to do his hobby of geology.
Unbeknownst to the inmates and guards, Andy is doing more than geology. He is using the hammer to break through a wall. He is using the poster to cover the hole. His plan is to get into the sewers. It’s a good job that the Warden did not employ the use of a CCTV Drain Survey Berkshire based company like https://www.drainpower.co.uk/drainage-services/cctv-drain-surveys/cctv-drain-surveys-berkshire/, they’d have spotted him in a shot.