One Glaring Problem With Andy Dufresne's Shawshank Escape

Andy dug his tunnel and escaped by crawling into the hole behind the poster.The Shawshank RedemptionHe did this with the poster still on the wall.

Red explains Andy dug his escape route for nearly 20 years. This suggests Andy practiced crawling from behind the poster to keep digging until he found the ladder to the sewer pipe. If he crawled in, dragging the bag with ledgers and rocks behind him, how did it not disturb the poster?

In Stephen King's original story, an aside shows Raquel Welch did not hide Andy's exit.Linda Ronstadt did.

The poster was Linda Ronstadt by then. It sat right over his bunk. That exact spot held a poster for twenty-six years. When Warden Norton looked behind it, it was poetic justice, they got a shock.

This does not explain why no one heard Andy digging over the years. Prison was loud; the scratching of his rock hammer was just one sound characterizing life in Shawshank.That sound characterized life in Shawshank.

Andy needed more space than pushing Rita Hayworth's poster aside allowed. Removing the poster entirely offered another tunnel option. This required a method for Andy to reattach the poster inside.

Andy's tunnel was small.It was just big enough for him to crawl through. He could not turn, change positions, or move otherwise. Andy likely did not take Raquel off the wall. He could not turn around and put it back up. The issue remains: since he could not crawl in, settle, pull up the bag, and go down the tunnel, how did he do it without taking the poster down?

We can discuss the rock Andy used to break the sewer pipe. It is unclear where Andy got that rock or how he knew it was there. Perhaps Andy had it all along. He placed it near the pipe before his escape, intending to use it later. King's story might offer a hint.King's story might offer a hint here.

Instead of crushing the debris to remove it from his cell with the gadgets I described, Andy could have let it fall down the shaft. The time he took suggests he did not dare do that. He may have thought the noise would raise suspicion. Or, if he knew about the sewer pipe, he feared a falling concrete piece would break it before he was ready, damaging the sewage system and causing an investigation. An investigation would lead to ruin.

Andy escaped the sewer on a rainy night. Luck helped him, or he chose it. He crawled through sewage and emerged clean on the other side.

Andy needed a plan to keep Raquel Welch's poster from falling and staying put before he left Shawshank Prison. His interest in geology played a part.Thank you, Red, for that information.Andy knew the science behind certain principles that could help him.Geology influenced Andy's escape methods.

[Geology] appealed to Andy's patient, careful nature. A ten-thousand-year ice age exists here. A million years of mountain building happens there. Tectonic plates grind under the earth's surface over ages. Pressure. Andy once said geology studies pressure.

Andy might have stuck a trinket or rock to the poster's bottom. This would make it fall back over his hole. This action could also create surface tension. The rock would pass through when Warden Norton accuses Raquel of working with Andy. This combines options one and three as escape methods; it seems like the best plan, except for the bag on his foot.

Consider this: does a fart disappear in the wind? Warden Norton, yelling about Andy's vanishing, claims he vanished like a fart. Farts, gas from the gut, do not vanish. They spread out and become diluted, making the smell less noticeable.Andy Dufresne made the smell.The smell became less noticeable.