From the start, people go through an institution. They are born in a hospital, which is an institution, go through kindergarten, grade school, university, spend a lot of time in a company and eventually dies in a sanctuary. Often, a religious institution would follow as an option.
Even Andy came from the institution – the bank. He probably was institutionalized in there, considering the fact that he was not caring enough to make his wife make an affair with someone else.
Andy became free when he was in prison. As ironical as it may sound, Andy realized how to be free in the place where freedom exist the least, what it meant to be institutionalized. If Andy did not go to prison in the first place, Andy would have never noticed how institutionalized he was – even if he did, he would have been satisfied with it, because that is what people call success. Adapting to the system, to survive and reside in the system is the common notion for a comfortable, successful life. Perhaps Andy realized this from the 19 years of imprisonment. He may have thought he was an honest, hardworking banker, but he could not even save his own life, let alone his wife’s.
I have been living in an institution for just about the time Andy spent in the prison. As much as people realize there is something wrong with the education system, with the irrational suicide rate and growing rate of crime committed by the students, people also know that the successful students are those who still adapted to the system and move on to the very similar system in the society. Often there are students, like Andy, who try to break away from it, but unlike Andy, who were so free in the place without any past memories, those students often have to be branded with the word ‘troublesome’.
They say it is the reality, and we have to live with it. As the warden told Andy. “Perhaps the whole society is institutionalized, yes, but that how you run the society” is what we hear all the time. Perhaps it is time we get some Rita Hayworth on our high wall.
