5. Andy Dufresne Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption
In 1947, Portland, Maine, banker Andy Dufresne is wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and her lover and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at the fictional Shawshank State Penitentiary in rural Maine. For the next 20 odd years or so, the reader is taken along Andys journey in the penal system, dealing with corruption and miscarriages of justice time and again. Along the way, Andy rises up within the rank and file of the prison hierarchy, becoming highly respected amongst his peers and highly sought after by the administration. Andy never loses touch with his humanity in spite of all he has to endure and rises above the blows which he has been dealt. Eventually, he is presented with irrefutable evidence that he was indeed wrongly convicted and moves to be released. He is shut down by the warden and the sole witness who can exonerate him is murdered to cover it up. Andy becomes a broken shell of his former self and his friends fear he will commit suicide. Instead, Andy gets the last laugh and thumbs his nose at the establishment in the most appropriate and epic way possible.