The Green Mile

Between Cold Mountain State Penitentiary and Georgia Pines, Paul discovers the force of institutional power and law, which follows him into his final years of life. At Cold Mountain, Paul has some rank as a supervising officer of The Green Mile, but he has no power to change the outcomes of inmates on death row. In the beginning of the novel, Paul is a firm extension of state power and law, in the way he follows protocol regarding every execution. He models order and authority on The Green Mile and ensures other guards follow suit.

On the other hand, Percy represents an abuse of state power and authority. Using his connections to justify violence towards inmates, he signifies the ways in which the law permits individuals, particularly white people in power, to use their privilege to their advantage. Paul sees this same abuse of power at Georgia Pines through orderly Brad’s callous tactics against him. In Paul’s old age, he is at the mercy of the state, whereas before he had been an arm of institutional order, at Cold Mountain.

A series of events—which include Delacroix’s bad death, Coffey’s arrival, and Wharton’s entry into Cold Mountain—erode the presence of state power over the lives of the guards and the inmates. The collision of these three events leads to a rupture in order, forcing Paul and the other guards to question their adherence to the law and their own personal sense of moral justice.

Prior to these events, they adhered to what the state demanded of them, despite the emotional burden of their work. However, the revelation of Coffey’s innocence alters their relationship to the state. The novel explores the ways in which the state continues to pervade in each of their lives and haunt their sense of individual autonomy, seeming to imply that individual autonomy is always bound up in state power, but acts of deep empathy motivated by right action (such as curing Melinda with Coffey’s help) are a way to break free, if only temporarily. 

While The Green Mile signifies the diverging paths between life and death sentences in Cold Mountain, the novel seems to suggest that the differences between life and death are not always so clear-cut. Although the rules of execution allow the state to take away one’s physical life, the novel considers the ways in which such power of judgment over life and death operates through and is superseded by a greater divine force.

Via Coffey, Paul experiences secondhand what it means to be brought back from life, and, firsthand, what it’s like to receive added years and energy to one’s life. The rigid rules that govern life and death in Cold Mountain are secondary to another power that is able to right wrongs the state cannot correct, as is the case with Coffey’s vengeance towards Percy and Wharton.

However, even a divine force has its own laws of balance, which demands that every life owes a death. Towards the end of the novel, Paul declares, “We each owe a death, there are no exceptions…” (535). In one sense, this statement implies that each person loses someone they love as sacrifice. In another, Paul’s words suggest that every human gives their life back to a higher power, much in the way Christ gave his life for mankind’s sins. The novel concludes by declaring that life and death are not diverging paths, but part of a continuum that eventually leads to death.