Name one of the texts on your comparative course. Identify a hero, heroine or
villain from the text. Describe the moment when you believe you saw the most
heroic or most villainous aspect of your chosen character.
Explain why you believe that this moment revealed the most heroic or most villainous aspect of his or her character. Support your response with reference to your chosen text. (15)
In The Shawshank Redemption by Frank Darabont, Warden Norton shows his most villainous traits when he decides to have Tommy murdered.
Tommy was a young prisoner who came to Shawshank, unable to read and write. With Andy’s help, Tommy managed to pass his high school exams, which gives him the confidence to try to make something of his life. Before he is released, he reveals to the other prisoners that while in Prison in another state, an inmate told him a story of how he murdered a man and a woman and that the woman’s husband was jailed for the killings. The men realise that he is talking about Andy’s wife and lover and it gives Andy an opportunity to clear his name.
They go to Warden Norton with this information and he is clearly unimpressed with the story. Andy tells the warden that he is being ‘obtuse’ and tells him that he won’t say anything about the money laundering. Norton reacts viciously, throwing Andy in ‘the hole’ for a month. But we see how truly evil the warden is when he asks to see Tommy outside one night. He asks Tommy to tell him the story and he does so. He asks Tommy if he would be willing to testify in court and he says he would. Norton casually stubs out his cigarette and nods to the guard in the tower, who shoots Tommy and he dies instantly. Norton covers this up by saying that he was trying to escape.
This was a truly villainous act. Norton, in order to save his own skin, killed an innocent man and ensured that another innocent man would not get the chance to leave prison. I think this key moment highlights how truly evil Warden Norton was.