The+Green+Mile+Book+Review+Sample

Book Report on The Green Mile Student Sample

The Green Mile was written by Stephen King. This book talks about the death penalty. The tory takes lace in the Cold Mountain Penitentiary. The main character is Paul Edgecombe. Indeed, he relates the different lives and stories of other charters. These are mainly John Coffey, Edouard Delacroix, Billy Wharton and Percy Wetmore. Through these diverse antagonists, we can see the different shapes that the death penalty can have. In fact, we find out in this book that the death penalty can remain a punishment (Wharton), but can become a murder (John Coffey or Edouard Delacroix). By reading The Green Mile, we can tell that the major point discussed is about the death penalty and its different meanings, if it always has. But, there is also a man who is a witness to some injustices and who cannot act in spite of his awareness.

The death penalty is supposed to be a way of punishment, by taking the life of a person who committed a crime. But sometimes, it’s not so simple and the prisoners waiting for death sometimes don’t deserve that kind of punishment. Or even if they deserve it, for someone like Paul Edgecombe, who takes the time to speak with the prisoners, things become less categorical. This book makes out the subjective side of the practice of the death penalty, meaning that before being criminal and prisoner, the convicted are first human beings. Let’s take the examples of John Coffey and Edouard Delacroix. Both were convicted and killed, but one was innocent, and the other ignorant. For these cases, what is the purpose of the death penalty? Is it to absolutely find someone guilty? For a person basically kind, like Paul Edgecombe, it’s very hard to stand up with. WE can feel it in the length he takes to describe the awful death of Delacroix. From the first chapter of part four until almost the end of the book, he tries to describe to us this horrible death. It is like he is haunted. In the same way, the remembrance of John Coffey always stays in his mind. Through the stories of Delacroix and Coffey, Paul Edgecombe, shows the unfair side of the death penalty. I think that for Wharton the death penalty may make sense, but if you really look at Wharton, he is really described as a devil. It’s an extreme description, almost not real. In my opinion we cannot compare the stories of Wharton and Delacroix or Coffey. Why? Because except for the description of the rimes he committed we don’t have any explanation about his background. Finally, Del and Coffey on one side and Wharton in the other side are two extremes.

Now what is the position of Paul Edgecombe? He works in this prison. It should be only a job for him to speak with the prisoners and lead them to Old Sparky(electric chair). So why can he not sleep without waking up during the night? Why does he always have nightmares or awful pictures in his head? He has to deal with what he learns from his job about the lives and what he must do. He knows that Coffey is innocent but he still has to bring him to the electric chair. By not being able to forget the stories of Del and Coffey, Paul Edgecombe is in jail too. He is a prisoner of his memories. Finally, for him the writing is a way to free himself. When you look at the end of his life in Georgia Pines, you see that he’s in a closed place again.

This book showed me the subjective aspect of the death penalty, meaning that people who are convicted still have stories and lives. I think that the antagonists are too extreme, however: you have the good (Coffey) or the Bad (Wharton). So, we can feel that some deserve it and some do not deserve death. But for me and certainly for Paul Edgecombe the question should be why the death penalty at all?