The Shawshank Redemption

“Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” is the opening story in the collection Different Seasons (1982) and embodies classic King themes of fear, confusion, and loss of control, albeit transformed and shifted to the fractured domesticity of a high-security prison. The chills and breathless horror commonplace in much of King’s other writings have been replaced by the psychological torture of living in a confined space for an indeterminate amount of time. The story was eventually made into a popular film released in 1994 under the title The Shawshank Redemption.