The Green Mile (book)
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The Green Mile (1996) is a serial novel by Stephen King, later republished with all six volumes in a trade paperback.
More or less as a challenge, Stephen King published this story as a serial in six parts. Just as in Charles Dickens' time, the story was crafted while the book was already in production. In keeping with the serial concept, the first edition consists of six thin, low-priced paperbacks.
Since it first appeared, The Green Mile has been republished as a single volume. The first edition contains a section where the narrator speaks directly to the reader; the later edition contains an additional foreword. The novel was left otherwise untouched, though King did change one passage where a character in a straitjacket wipes his brow (a mistake that initially slipped past both him and his editor).
The novel was adapted by Frank Darabont for the screenplay of a feature film of the same name in 1999, directed by Darabont, starring Tom Hanks as Paul Edgecombe and Michael Clarke Duncan as John Coffey.
Volumes of The Green Mile
- Volume 1: Two Dead Girls (released March 28, 1996)
- Volume 2: The Mouse on the Mile (released April 25, 1996)
- Volume 3: Coffey's Hands (released May 30, 1996)
- Volume 4: The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix (released June 27, 1996)
- Volume 5: Night Journey (released July 25, 1996)
- Volume 6: Coffey on the Mile (released August 29, 1996)
The main characters are the inmates and warders of the E Block on Cold Mountain Penetentiary. The book has a clear narrative voice belonging to the captain of the guard, Paul Edgecombe. "The Green Mile" is the corridor from the cells where the prisoners live to the execution room beyond Edgecombe's office. Similar corridors leading to execution rooms at other prisons are called the "last mile". The linoleum flooring of this corridor is green, hence "Green Mile". The story takes place in the 1930s (the book in 1932 and the film in 1935), but there is also a framing plot where Paul is shown as an old man in a nursing home, trying to exorcise the ghosts of his past through writing.
The story centers on John Coffey, an almost seven-foot black man who is convicted of raping and killing two small white girls. He is notable because of his size and also for his strange behaviour; he is very quiet and prefers to keep to himself, he weeps almost constantly, and is afraid of the dark. Coffey is described as "know[ing] his own name and not much else", and lacks the ability to so much as tie a knot, yet he is convicted of luring the girls away from their home, disposing of the watchdog, carefully planning and using abilities he would otherwise not be expected to have. He's the calmest and mildest prisoner the warders have ever seen, despite his hulking form. Besides John Coffey, there are two other prisoners on the cell block during the main period the book focuses on. One of them, Eduard Delacroix, a convicted arsonist, rapist, and murderer, is small and cowardly (the actions which led to his conviction being described as "the only crime he had in him"). The other, William Wharton, is tough and boasting, claiming to be a modern Billy the Kid. When Paul looks even before the 1930's, he recollects about warding the Chief, a Native American named Arlen Bitterbuck, and the Prez, a former CEO who killed a relative, hoping to collect life insurance money.
The story also features Mr. Jingles, a small and unnaturally intelligent mouse who befriends Delacroix. He appeared much earlier than Delacroix, and Paul speculates he was looking for the Cajun. The mouse learns various tricks and appears to follow commands; Delacroix insists that the mouse whispers things in his ear. After the two meet, Delacroix practically falls in love with the mouse, and Mr. Jingles ceases his cell-searching.
Over time, the warders realize that there is something else special about John Coffey, as he is revealed to possess mystical healing abilities. These powers heal Paul's urinary infection, the warden's wife's brain tumor, and Mr. Jingles broken form (courtesy of Percy Wetmore, a prissy jailor who hated Delacroix). They are faced with the terrible truth that they must execute what they call a "gift from God". They finally execute Coffey, but not before he passes on an unnatural lifespan to both Mr. Jingles and Paul. In the end, Mr. Jingles is killed by an old folk's home orderly who resembles Percy Wetmore in attitude, Paul reveals to a friend how his wife died, and we learn that Paul is 104 years old, but his abnormally long life would soon end.
External links
- [Stephen King's official website]
- [The Green Mile] An article discussing the religious symbolism in the novel
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