Content warning: this section of the guide contains references to death by suicide, sexual assault, racism, and the Holocaust. 

The narrator, Red (no other name given), is the guy at Shawshank prison who can get you anything, though he draws the line at weapons. He is in prison for the murder of his wife, to which he admits, and her friend and friend’s baby, who were in his wife’s car when the tampered brakes failed. He is serving three consecutive life-sentences. He says that he is one of only a few men in the prison who admits to having committed the crime, and he regrets it; in hindsight, he would not have done it, but he’s not sure that that means that he is rehabilitated.

Red tells the story of Andy Dufresne, one of fewer than 10 men whom Red believes were actually innocent. Andy had been a banker before he was convicted of murdering his wife and her lover. The evidence was all circumstantial, but Andy’s fate was sealed by the fact that he was too stoic and self-possessed to get the sympathy of the jury.

One day, Andy comes to Red and asks him to get a rock hammer and some rock-polishing cloths.