Andy Dufresne

“A little General Motors, a little American Telephone and Telegraph, a hundred and fifty shares of Revlon. All this banker’s choices. Dufresne, his name was—I remember, because it sounds a little like mine. It seems he was not so smart at wife-killing as he was at picking growth stocks.

Dussander identifies Dufresne as his Maine investment banker and refers to the banker’s conviction for killing his wife. That reported case history identifies Andy; the speaker’s assumption of guilt is not an independent finding.

And it wasn’t. • • • When Andy came to Shawshank in 1948, he was thirty years old. He was a short, neat little man with sandy hair and small, clever hands. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles. His fingernails were always clipped, and they were always clean.

Andy, formally Andrew Dufresne, is the imprisoned Portland banker. Apt Pupil identifies Dussander’s Maine investment banker as Dufresne and describes his wife-murder conviction, establishing the same identity through surname, occupation, location and case history. Peter Stevens is Andy’s invented legal identity, not another person.

Andrew Dufresne, he said, was not a wronged husband seeking a hot-blooded revenge against his cheating wife; that, the DA said, could be understood, if not condoned. But this revenge had been of a much colder type. Consider! the DA thundered at the jury. Four and four! Not six shots, but eight!

The trial account supplies Andy’s formal first name Andrew.