Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption

by

Stephen King

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption makes teaching easy.

Tommy Williams Character Analysis

Tommy Williams, a career thief, enters Shawshank prison in 1962 at age 27. He has been incarcerated in multiple other prisons before. He has a young son and a wife, who convinces him to study for the high-school equivalency exams while at Shawshank. Andy Dufresne, who is by that point Shawshank’s librarian, helps Tommy study. Tommy grows to like Andy a lot. Having discovered that Andy was incarcerated for murdering his wife Linda and her lover Glenn Quentin, Tommy reveals to Andy that his cellmate during a previous incarceration, Elwood Blatch, bragged about having murdered Linda and Glenn during a burglary. After Andy tells Warden Samuel Norton Tommy’s story, Norton—who wants to keep Andy at Shawshank, laundering his money and under his control—transfers Tommy to another, lower-security prison in exchange for Tommy’s silence. This outcome demonstrates that, in the novella’s worldview, the U.S. justice system does not produce justice and that the correctional system does not rehabilitate prisoners but instead bends them to the whims of corrupt administrators.

Tommy Williams Quotes in Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption

The Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption quotes below are all either spoken by Tommy Williams or refer to Tommy Williams. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Institutionalization vs. Freedom  Theme Icon
).
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption Quotes

He said it was as if Tommy had produced a key which fit a cage in the back of his mind, a cage like his own cell. Only instead of holding a man, that cage held a tiger, and that tiger’s name was Hope. Williams had produced the key that unlocked the cage and the tiger was out, willy-nilly, to roam his brain.

Related Characters: Red/The Narrator (speaker), Andy Dufresne, Samuel Norton, Tommy Williams
Page Number: 56
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption LitChart as a printable PDF.
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption PDF

Tommy Williams Quotes in Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption

The Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption quotes below are all either spoken by Tommy Williams or refer to Tommy Williams. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Institutionalization vs. Freedom  Theme Icon
).
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption Quotes

He said it was as if Tommy had produced a key which fit a cage in the back of his mind, a cage like his own cell. Only instead of holding a man, that cage held a tiger, and that tiger’s name was Hope. Williams had produced the key that unlocked the cage and the tiger was out, willy-nilly, to roam his brain.

Related Characters: Red/The Narrator (speaker), Andy Dufresne, Samuel Norton, Tommy Williams
Page Number: 56
Explanation and Analysis: