Written by Mr. Mouseburger 20th Jun 2005
The events that lead up to this death are what gives it such a high rating in my opinion rather than the death alone, which is pretty mainstream. Dufresne (pronounced Doo-Frain) has escaped through a hole which has taken him years to chisel out with his trusty rock hammer. The warden is apoplectic with rage as Dufresne was the mastermind behind a 101 dodgy scams the warden had going on.
hole-y moley!
When the warden reads that someone has tipped off the papers to these shady dealings, he begins to suspect that Dufresne has betrayed him. Heading to his trusty safe, Norton intends to destroy any incriminating evidence. However, upon opening the safe, instead of finding his ledger, he finds a bible with a small inscription in it:
The warden learns the hard way: never trust a banker!
"Warden, you were right, salvation lay within" - this comment was a line that the Warden had said to Dufresne earlier in the film. Norton, turning the page beautifully bookmarked on the chapter "Exodus”, discovers that hollowed out of the centre of the book was a space for Dufresne's small rock hammer.
This, plus the revelation that Dufresne has swapped the ledger with all the prison's dealings in for his bible, is enough to tip the Warden over the edge and, reaching for his gun, he prepares to go down fighting.
He quickly realises it is futile to resist and so turns the gun on himself and blows his brains out.
The warden takes a power nap - for all eternity. Notice how the entry wound is in a different place to where he places the gun.
if Samuel Norton is evil then why did he commit suicide?
It's not always necessary to be evil to be the antagonist. Look at *wince* Hulk. The military are not the bad guys, there's a giant green monster running wild out in the country. And the Hulk (Eric Bana, wasnt' it?) isn't a bad guy either, he essentially just wants to be left alone. Yet they fight...because the movie is about the Hulk, the military are the "bad guys", but the only reason they're called out to stop the Hulk is to protect the general populace which makes them the "good guys" in spite of being the antagonists in the picture.
In the case of Samuel Norton however, I wouldn't feel too much sympathy. He was brutal, corrupt and I'm fairly sure he learned Dufresne was innocent but killed the only man that could testify to it - or have I remembered the film wrong?
You could argue that Norton was the inevitable product of the harsh prison system, but nobody could claim he was blameless.
I believe he killed himself because he knew that going to prison as an ex-governor would be a fate far worse than death!
OB
He killed himself because he was a pussy. He was so deathly afraid of going to the torturous existance he himself had created that he decided to go out on his own terms. How long do you honestly think the warden of a prison would last behind bars? A day? An hour? A minute? At the very least, it would be a shorter stay than even the fat dude clocked.
That's how Hitler died.
This is one of my all-time favorite comeuppances of a villain. Norton put Dufresne through such a living Hell by shoving him in solitary confinement for two months that it's really cool watching as Dufresne did everything to bring Norton down and pretty much just robbed him of everything he ever had in one fell swoop.
I would almost argue that Andy could be classified under killer simply because he pretty much was the reason why Norton ended up dying: he destroyed his whole life in little time at all. Of course that's stretching it but still.
Anonymous User Wrote:
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> That's how Hitler died.
Actually you're incorrect on that one. Hitler shot himself in the temple while Norton shot himself where the head conjoins with the neck.
Norton killed himself because he knew he would end up either facing the death penalty, or at the very least, a life sentence in prison, so he decided to end his life on his own terms.