The Green Mile
Essay Preview: The Green Mile
Report this essay
In his novel The Green Mile Stephen King uses the dominant
discourse of power to reflect the attitudes and cultural beliefs of Southern USA in the 1930s, while contrasting these beliefs to todays society. The concept of power used in The Green Mile illustrates that when it is abused the consequences that can and will transpire have a harmful effect on everyone involved.
The abuse of power intertwines with several different ideologies
in The Green Mile. Justice can be identified as the foremost
significant abuse of power in the novel. Those who had power positioned
themselves so that they could take full advantage of their situation, while those who did not have power couldnt act without being disgraced in the process. The level of power one person possessed was determined by various reasons, from something as simple as religion to family history.
Stephen King clearly shows in the novel that the dominant reading
is that power is a way of life. Seventy years before the 1930s, was
the time of King Cotton, where many families made their fortune and
gained respect and power from the community. The Dettericks were a result
of this history and the judgement of John Coffey was swift because the
Dettericks were considered to be well off. These well to do families
were also known in the eyes of the public to be a very religious
families, as the novel was set in 1930s Louisiana, which was referred to as
the Bible belt. This area of America was known for their over reliance on
religion. Stephen King shows throughout The Green Mile that the word
of people who have power is never questioned.
Lower and middle class people were powerless to change societal
concepts. Paul Edgecomb listened to Burt Hammersmith expose the racial
superiority in society, when he stereotyped and compared Negros to the
likes of animals, In many ways, a good mongrel dog is like your negro,
you get to know it, and often you grow to love it (The Green Mile,
Stephen King, 1996, p173) The boy was there in front of him and the dog
bit. And that is what happened with Coffey (p175). Paul accepted these
without challenge because he was well aware that he could do little
about the racist attitudes of the south and he wasnt in the position to
contradict society. John Coffey also used this discourse of racial
superiority when he referred to the guards as boss, consistent with black
slavery where the whites were always known as boss. King has
intentionally shaped the characters in this novel so that these higher classed
individuals are perceived as ones who think of themselves as sup!
erior.
Many characters in The Green Mile abused their power by
inflicting pain or by using people when they were most vulnerable. In the novel
Percy Wetmore had connections that could have given him any job, except
he was an evil coward and wanted to be in total control. He had no
respect for Edgecombs authority as King used the class discourse to show
how much better Percy thought he was, This isnt my job, This big
lugoon is my job.(p12) King made the connection between the 1930s Percy
and the 1990s Brad Dolan as they both constantly