Summary
Norton orders the guards to question all the prisoners. The guard who found the cell empty tells Norton that Andy "just wasn't here," but Andy will not accept this explanation and yells at the guard to find Andy as soon as possible. The guards bring Red in to question him, but Red knows nothing about Andy's disappearance. "This is a conspiracy!...And everybody's in on it! Including her!" Norton yells, throwing a rock at a poster of Raquel Welch on Andy's cell wall. When he throws the rock at the poster, it goes through, revealing a hole in the wall.
"In 1966, Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank prison," Red narrates, as we see hoards of policeman on the hunt for him in the surrounding area. The guards find nothing except Andy's prison clothes, a bar of soap, and his rock hammer.
We see a flashback of Andy carving his name in his cell wall, when suddenly a chunk of it falls onto the ground. In voiceover, Red describes Andy's escape, "Geology is the study of time and pressure. That's all it takes really...pressure...and time. That and a big goddamn poster." We see Andy in flashback bringing the debris from the hole he is digging and surreptitiously dropping it in the prison yard. Then we see him in flashback on the night of his escape, switching out a file and a Bible of Norton's for his own and putting on Norton's shoes as his own. We then see him climbing through the hole he has built and escaping the prison with a bag of his belongings attached to his foot. He breaks a plumbing pipe and climbs through it to the river outside the prison, ripping off his clothes when he reaches freedom and throwing up his arms in the rain.
We next see Andy visiting a Maine bank and taking out most of the money that Norton has been putting away, $370,000 in total, using the fictional alias that he used to create the account in the first place. The banker wishes Andy well as he embarks on his exploits abroad. As he leaves, Andy hands the secretary a package to send to the local paper, the stolen file and Bible from Norton's desk. We see Norton reading a headline about corruption and murder at Shawshank, as police sirens blare, signaling his imminent arrest. Running to his vault, Norton opens the Bible that Andy left there and reads the note in the front pages: "You were right, Salvation lay within." Flipping further into the Bible, he finds a cut-out in the Bible where Andy was keeping his rock hammer all along.
Norton watches as Byron Hadley and the others get arrested, before shooting himself in his office. Not long after, Red receives a blank postcard from Fort Hancock, Texas, right on the Mexican border, the place where Andy crosses over to start his new life. We see Andy driving to Mexico in a convertible with the top down.
We see Red continuing his life at Shawshank, happy for Andy for his escape, but sad to miss his friend. He narrates, "Some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. But still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone."
Some time later, Red goes in to apply for parole, after 40 years. When they ask him if he's been rehabilitated, he tells them "rehabilitated" is just a made-up word, and that he's sorry for his crime, filled with remorse and regret, and that the person he once was is gone. They grant him parole, and Red is released.
Red leaves the prison and takes a bus to a halfway house. When he enters his room, he sees Brooks' etching on the ceiling, "Brooks was here." We next see him bagging groceries at the grocery store, just as Brooks did. "There's a harsh truth to face. No way I'm gonna make it on the outside," he narrates, and we see Red looking at guns in a shop window.
"Only one thing stops me," Red says, "A promise I made to Andy." He hitches a ride to Buxton to the oak tree that Andy told him about, and finds the rock that Andy mentioned, smiling at it as he picks it up. He then pulls a box out of the ground beneath it. When he opens it, he finds an envelope wrapped in plastic, inside of which is a stack of bills and a letter from Andy inviting Red to come to the town in Mexico. Red packs a bag and leaves for Mexico that day, riding a bus there.
Red arrives on a beach in Mexico, where he finds Andy fixing up a boat. The friends smile at each other.
Analysis
In this final section of the film, it is revealed that Andy has been patiently planning an elaborate escape the entire time, slowly chipping away at the rock in the wall of his cell. If Andy has seemed unassuming and reticent already, his secret escape proves just how good the meticulous banker is at keeping a secret. Andy's super strength, as everyone has long suspected, is his patience and his follow through, and he proves this in his sudden disappearance.
In the wake of Andy's disappearance, Red connects his friend's character and temperament to his interest in geology. He describes geology as "the study of pressure and time," which is an equally apt way of describing Andy's psychological trajectory in prison. After nearly 20 years under the pressure of knowing that he has been wrongfully convicted for a crime he didn't commit, Andy's geological project takes form and he is able to use the rocks of the prison to set himself free.
Not only does Andy manage to escape from prison, but he also manages to serve justice by stealing all of the money that Norton laundered, and revealing Norton's nefarious ways to the authorities. In an elaborate and impressive display, Andy perfectly orchestrates his own redemption, and takes down the evil warden in the process.
While Andy finds freedom, Red's is a harder journey. After 40 years in prison, he goes up for parole, and for the first time is honest with the parole officers, telling them that while he cannot say what the word "rehabilitated" means, he is regretful for the criminal he once was and bears the burden of his crime everyday. Curiously enough, his irreverence wins him his freedom and he follows in Brooks' path, to the very room in the halfway house where Brooks committed suicide and to the same job as a grocery store bagger. For a moment, it seems that Red will meet Brooks' same suicidal fate, unable to integrate himself with the society he left behind so many years ago.
Yet again, however, Andy spreads his peculiar brand of hope. Just when it seems that Red will give up on life and kill himself, he follows Andy's instructions and goes in search of the tree Andy told him about. There he finds money and an invitation to Mexico, the salvation and freedom from a purposeless life that he needs. In a heartwarming ending sequence, the aging Red travels by bus to Mexico, finding his old friend on a white, sandy beach next to a blue ocean, an image of hope that Red has never been able to conjure.
