CONTENTS
Acknowledgements.. i
Abstract.. ii
摘 要..iii
1 Introduction.. 1
2 Faith in Knowledge and Skill4
2.1 The Rock-hammer and Quartz.4
2.2 The Poster of Rita Hayworth.5
2.3 The Library..5
2.4 TaxAccountant..6
3 Faith in Kindness8
3.1 Rewards of Hardworking 8
3.2 Good is Rewarded; Evil is Punished 9
3.3 Justice is Done9
4 Faith in Friendship.11
4.1 Friendship—Sweet Responsibility. 11
4.2 Friends: to Share Woe and Weal.. 12
5 Conclusions. 13
Bibliography16
1 IntroductionRita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption is one of the most famous short stories by StephenKing (1947-). It is from Stephen King’s 1982 collection Different Seasons which collects fournovellas and all of them are ordinary stories, and is subtitled as Hope Springs Eternal. The writer isinspired by a Scottish sailor who has suffered a great danger at sea. It won vast readers after it’spublication. The book has been translated into 31 languages, including three versions in Chinese. Itwas adapted in a film in 1994 as The Shawshank Redemption, which was nominated for sevenAcademy Awards in 1994, including Best Picture. Stephen King has his own unique way in writinghorror, science and fantasy works which make him enjoy great popularity. But Rita Hayworth andThe Shawshank Redemption is the maverick at that time—a piece of ‘alternative’ work widelydifferent from any style or theme of his other novels. It’s ‘alternative’ means that it producesintense reactions through deep interpretation and serious thinking of humanity. In the late 1960s andthe early 1970s, the development of American literature seemed to run into the bottleneck.Experimentalism of Hemingway and Faulkner was imitated so largely that it was rigidified. Lessproductions were worth reading. At that time, Stephen King rose suddenly and published RitaHayworth and The Shawshank Redemption as Zhixin Yu said ‘brighten your eyes and keep youreading from the first page to the last one.’ (Yu, 2008:1)Stephen King was born on 21 September in 1947 in Maine in America. When King was 2, his fatherwent out to buy cigarettes and never came back, leaving King’s mother alone to raise King and hisbrother. They moved around all the time. When he was 11, his mother brought him back to Maineto take care of her old parents. She found a job in a local laundress in order to support the family.When King was still a child, he saw his friend rolled over by a train. Some people think that thisevent has aroused the darkness in King’s mind and to certain extend has had lasting effect on hisworks. But King himself doesn’t agree with that saying.Stephen King has shown great passion on horror themes.