Graduation Research in Literature (Novel)

Title: A Socio- Psychological Post-Colonial Analysis of The Green Mile.

Presented by: Toqa Essam Mohammed Ali.

Department of English

Supervisor: Dr. Essam Ibrahim Hegazy.

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Abstract:
Discrimination and injustice applied on black people has been an unsettled
issue for centuries ago and still. This issue has been discussed differently-deep in
various literary works. Though the main figure in the novel -who is got a black
skin- had been blessed by owning divine abilities which supposedly makes him
superior to other white men or at least on the same scale, the character of John
Coffey-the protagonist of the novel- was captured as a helpless, weak, under-
discriminated individual. This paper traces discrimination in The Green Mile Post-
colonial novel which was composed by Stephen King and published in 1996. The
paper aims at examining the law structure held by white individuals, and how it is
a contradictory to the moral goal of bringing justice to people, especially the black
ones. Furthermore, the paper tackles the psychological trauma of discrimination
against black people with taking the guidance of the anti-colonial ideas of the
philosopher Frantz Fanon. The definition of his concept the “Colonized Mentality”
shall be included in the paper with the reference to the presented characterization
of “John Coffey” the black-skinned protagonist.

Keywords:
 Discrimination
 Law
 Injustice
 Prejudice
 Invaded psychology
 Colonialism
 Colonized Mentality

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Introduction:
Racism is defined by Oxford Dictionary as: prejudice, discrimination, or
antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people
on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically
one that is a minority or marginalized. Throughout United States history, white
Americans have enjoyed socially or legally sanctioned privileges and rights which
have been denied to members of various ethnic or minority groups. European
Americans, particularly affluent white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, have enjoyed
advantages in matters of education, immigration, citizenship, land acquisition,
voting rights, bankruptcy and criminal procedure. Over the history of America,
black people have suffered from restrictions on the political, social and economic
scales. Racism has taken many brutal forms, such as:
genocide, slavery, segregation, violence, bullying and unfair laws.
The novel of The Green Mile presents racism and prejudice on a great scale
through tracking the suffering of John Coffey in death raw out of post-colonial
vision. Post-colonial theory is a school of thought that focuses on the political,
aesthetic, economic, historical, and social consequences of European colonialism
throughout the world from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Post-colonial theory takes
many various forms and interventions, but they all make the same basic claim, that
the society we live in is hard to comprehend except through the lens of relativism
and colonial rule. This means that “European philosophy,” “European literature,”
and “European history” cannot exist without reference to Europe's colonial
experiences and oppression around the world. It also implies that the conquered
world is at the heart of global modernity, but is often overlooked. Although the
word "post" in "postcolonial theory" has been hotly disputed, it never implied that
colonialism has come to an end.
The way we read texts, understand national and trans-national histories, and
grasp the political consequences of our own knowledge as researchers has all been
influenced by postcolonial theory. Despite many criticisms from both inside and
outside the field, postcolonial theory remains one of the most important kinds of
critical humanistic investigation in both academia and the workplace. Post-
colonialism also is a critical academic study of colonialism's and imperialism's
cultural legacies, with an emphasis on the human effects of colonized people and

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their lands being controlled and exploited. It is a critical theory critique of the
history, culture, literature, and language of imperial power. Since America has
experienced lots of prejudice against black people, Racism in America, therefore,
shares a long history of unfair judgments and conditions.
Discussion:
The brutal history of racism:
When one looks back in the history of America and its way of dealing with
black people, would he be proud or ashamed? Between 1525 and 1866, 12.5
million people were kidnapped from Africa and sent to the Americas through the
transatlantic slave trade. They were enslaved by white men just because of their
race and color. Only a few individuals could pay money for gaining their own
freedom.
Significant changes started to arise in the colonies by the late 1600s. As the
number of European immigrants residing in the United States grew, so did the
demand for land and labor. When it became economically less profitable to hire
servants of European descent, indentured servitude lost its appeal. Slavery started
to be the main source of forced labor for white settlers. Since Africans brought
advanced farming, carpentry, and bricklaying skills, as well as metal and
leatherworking skills, they were seen as more suitable slaves. The colonists saw
Africans as a source of labor in the early days of colonial America, and they
regarded their future as being dependent on them.
In 1662, Virginia passed a law establishing hereditary slavery, which implied
that the status of the mother dictated the status of the infant. Another Virginia law
repealed the last of the religious requirements that limited servitude in 1667. Even
if enslaved people converted to Christianity, this new law made it legal to hold
them in slavery. With this declaration, the excuse for black servitude shifted from
religious status to a racial classification. New laws and societal norms linked
Africans to endless labor by the mid-1700s, and the American colonies developed
formal social distinctions among their citizens based on appearance, place of
origin, and heredity. The Africans' physical distinctions acted as a symbol for their
newly developed status as second-class people. To further distinguish the social
and legal relations between lower-class whites and African laborers (enslaved or

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free), laws were passed to govern their contact. These laws established a racial
hierarchy.
Though Americans and white people had every advantage of life, their
consciousness of freedom created a paradox. In the late 18th century, colonists'
belief in natural laws triggered a revolutionary political thinking. New generations
of Americans, many of whom were born in the colonies, embraced ideas such as
John Locke's "Social Contract," which asserts that all people have a natural right to
life, liberty, and property, and that any established government is valid only if
those people agree.
“The scars and stains of racism are still deeply embedded in the American
society”. John Lewis, Congressman and Civil Rights Pioneer.

How does one justify holding a human as property?

By the beginning of 19th century, the term "white" had come to denote a
privileged, landholding, usually male, status. Being white meant you had clear
rights in society, while not being white meant your privileges, rights, and property
were precarious, if not non-existent. Language itself is racist! This is precisely the
main reason of the protagonist’s suffering in the novel of The Green Mile. The
protagonist (John Coffey) was described as having a black skin which turned out to
be his main source of agony and later, his own death.

The story of The Green Mile started when John Coffey was caught in the scene
of the crime where two daughters of a white man killed. He was seen embracing
them covered with blood and crying. Accordingly, he was sent into prison,
sentenced to death. In prison and through events, the guards including Paul-the
chief officer- got to know the real Coffey and his divine abilities to heal illnesses.
He knew his innocence, yet he was unable to rescue him from his inevitable death.
Brutally, John was executed before the eyes of many witnesses on an electric chair.
Years after, Paul turned old and was kept in an elderly home and finally decided to
tell the story of the innocent Coffey to his friend Ellaine, through whom we knew
about the atrocities of the unjust laws against the black people applied in prison.

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Racism as a trigger to injustice:

John Coffey- as pictured in the novel- shewed compassion and tried to heal
every wound of others; though in return, they took advantage of him for healing
Melinda and yet they executed him. The Green Mile shows that opposing racism
verbally is insufficient to change the status. Even though the anti-racist characters
such as Paul express their outrage at the injustice of Coffey’s death, they prove
incapable of taking concrete action to try to save his life, or at least, beyond Paul’s
writing to publicly clear him of blame.

John Coffey is inherently disadvantaged because of his skin color, and racism
is ultimately the deciding factor in condemning him to death. Coffey’s crime is
considered particularly gruesome because of its inter-racial nature, as it involves a
black man against two white girls.
The author shows that white criminals, in general, benefit from greater
clemency than black men, even for the same crimes. An example for that, William
Wharton’s execution is delayed because his lawyer invokes the fact that his client
is a young, white man and, in so doing, has a chance of convincing judges to
commute his death sentence to life. However Coffey has never got a second
chance.
“John Coffey is a Negro, and in Trapingus County we’re awful particular about
giving new trials to Negroes” (Deputy McGee, p. 180).
Even though both men-Paul and Brutus- know John is innocent, and that it is
in fact a white man who is responsible for the murder of the Detterick girls, the
men in charge of the legal system prove unwilling to save a black man from an
unjust death. Such racism in legal institutions mirrors people’s general racism in
this predominantly white, Southern American society. Many characters are loath to
recognize the equal dignity of black people and often treat them as savage and
inferior beings.
Percy notes that Mr. Jingles’s way of eating a Ritz cracker is not an
extraordinary feat but, rather, looks “like a nigger eating watermelon” (Percy, p.
40). On another occasion, William Wharton tells John: “Niggers ought to have
they own ’lectric chair.” (William Wharton, p.147)

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 “I’d not bring slavery back for all the tea in China. I think we have to be humane
and generous in our efforts to solve the race problem. But we have to remember
that your Negro will bite if he gets the chance, just like a mongrel dog will bite if
he gets the chance”. (The reporter Hammersmith to Paul, p. 84).
White men do not bear trust in black people. They think that black people are
dangerous enough to be always cautious with them.
Defending Rights Needs Power!
Starting from applying justice on any society is to parallel law with bringing
justice to people, though in The Green Mile, law could not bring out justice. While
law is meant to punish criminals, King presents that it does not always accomplish
its mission and fails at differentiating the guilty from the innocent. John Coffey, by
contrast, is an example of the law’s failings.
This mixture of impunity (as certain heinous crimes go unpunished by the law)
and injustice (as innocent persons are deemed criminals) shows that the law does
not have the appropriate standard for determining each person's true guilt and
innocence. Despite Percy’s and Brad Dolan’s brutality and unethical conduct, none
of these men were ever convicted by the law, implying once again that law system
does not really have anything to do with justice or morality.
Defending rights needs power, and that what the society of The Green Mile
lacked, even the persons who insured his innocence. At the scene of killing
Delacroix harshly, Brutus said ironically as a justification for the horrific killing of
Delacroix: “They’ll say it was the will of God, working through us.” (Brutus, p.
120). They even could not have the power to punish Percy for his crime at killing
Delacroix this harshly.
People invoke “God’s will” as a justification for their views. Morality, justice,
and God's will are therefore principles that are open to personal interpretation in
The Green Mile, as people use these concepts to justify acts of all kinds, humane or
cruel, based on their own worldview. John Coffey proves that he is a divine entity
who brings joy and redemption to the world, but white people could only give him
cruelty and execution.

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Paul as In-Between:
Paul, as the chief officer, takes his work seriously, insisting that all inmates
should be handled with dignity and respect in order for their final moments to be
bearable. He has a strong sense of guilt, as his urge to atone for Delacroix's heinous
execution drives him to put his career and freedom on the line in order to cure
Morse's brain tumor. Perhaps the author featured the character of Paul this way in
order to give a flash of light to all black people whom discrimination is practiced
upon, to give a message that not all people are that evil and that there is still
goodness in people.
Paul was a character in-between, since he was a racist against John Coffey at
first by describing him as having a “simple minded” without even talking to him.
Though as soon as he discovered his innocence, he sympathized with Coffey and
started to treat him gently and with dignity.
Unfortunately, Paul represents the incapability of law as he did nothing to set
the innocent man free. Years passed, Paul told the story of Coffey to his friend Elly
thinking he is making him a hero; though in fact, he just wanted to lessen the
burden on his shoulders. In fact, he was not exonerating Coffey; rather, he was
exonerating himself. Paul admits that it is possible to think of his job as a criminal:
“yes, in a way we were killers. I’d done seventy-seven myself, more than any of
the men I’d ever put the chest-strap on.” (Paul, p. 170). He feels much shame of
himself even years after the incident of Coffey.
Since Paul proved unable to apply justice and was so obsessed of following
rules of achieving the supposed justice which later imprisoned him in his guilt, he
was infected by life as a kind of punishment. As if Stephen directs a message, “We
do not need sympathy, We need more, We need actions”. Paul, even for his good
character, was useless to Coffey as he could not save him from his unfair
execution. Paul, who was powerless to intervene in John Coffey's wrongful
execution, was also punished for his inaction. Life had poisoned him. As a result,
life can be viewed as a time of waiting for a potentially painful end, regardless of
how long or short the waiting is.

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Percy: Dirtiness of law:
Percy is hated by both inmates and guards alike because he is an extremely
brutal guard who makes the environment on E block violent and unpredictable. His
characteristic cowardice is off-set by the fact that he is the nephew of the
governor's wife, allowing him to behave arrogantly with the confidence that if
someone mistreats him, he will shoot them.
Although he enjoys insulting and beating weaker people as in when he insulted
Coffey in his way in to his cell, saying: “Dead man walking” (Percy, p. 13), he is
terrified of being humiliated himself. Percy's contempt for Delacroix is partly
motivated by homophobia, as he brutally beats the chained prisoner under the false
pretense that Delacroix has touched him inappropriately.
As Percy represented the dirty side of law with its unjust and brutal actions, he
was sentenced to spend the remainder of his life in a mental institution as a result
of his crime.
John Coffey: The dog is tired, boss!
Despite John’s threatening size which made all of the guards afraid of him at
the first look, he is compassionate and non-violent. He is mostly illiterate with
simple mind (he can only spell his own name) and terrified of the darkness like an
infant. Most of his time he spends in the jail, he cries for the pain of others. He
possesses remarkable healing abilities, leading the guards on E block to believe he
is a channel for God's will. He is not just healing diseases, he takes in the disease
and suffers because of it for a while, which makes him seem to the reader as an
illness cupboard. The question is why he always have to handle the pain and
evilness of others?! Isn’t it too much for him? John feels that fixing the whole
universe is lied upon his shoulders. As if it is his own mission to help all people
and no one can really stand all that burden! He even cries when he cannot
accomplish his mission.
John is an innocent man, and was accused falsely of raping and murdering two
white girls. Though he carries goodness inside, he was pictured as weak and
submissive to evilness surrounded him. That appeared clearly in the scene when
the wild Bill held his hand roughly. Why evilness is always supposed to be

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portrayed as the strong side?! John is portrayed in the novel as lonely and suffering
from other company, and everyone feels pity for him.
Though Percy was a pure evil law-man, the punishment John laid upon him
was seen as barbarian and savage when he forced Percy to take in the tumor with
his supernatural gift, the thing that leads readers to question whether it is a gift or
an actual curse.
John was tall, and because of that he had to bend his head many times until
this act became stuck into his general behavior. He was always submissive and
pathetic to others. “I am sorry for what I am” (Coffey, p. 194). John understands
fully that what makes him suffer that much is the thing that other people call GIFT.
Death shows up as John’s salvation and a consolation of the under-discriminated
Coffey. A consolation of the agony of the racial misjudging he suffered from.
Besides, the audience who delivered the story of John Coffey should have
glorified his name or labeling him as a hero, but none of that ever happened. Poor
John! Lived as unrecognized, and died unknown.
The colonized Mentality in view of “The dog is tired, boss”:
Frantz Fanon, French West Indian psychiatrist and political philosopher,
believes that colonization system mentally affects the colonized self-identity and
mental health. He argues that the colonial psyche is fractured by the lack of mental
homogeneity as a result of the colonial power's western culture being forced upon
the colonized population.
Fanon's research into psychology and sociology led him to the belief that
colonized people maintain their situation by attempting to imitate their oppressors'
culture and ideas. He wrote, "Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we
must clinically detect and remove from our land but from our minds as well.”
Colonialism has shaped how we see ourselves!
Colonialism has led people to avoid getting tan, and made them willing to
absorb the colonizer culture no matter how different it is from them. It led Negros
to hate their facial features, and hate their color. That is exactly what happened to
John Coffey when he described himself as a dog. His mind was so invaded by the

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oppressing white people that he looked down to himself after losing his self-
confidence.
Cultural ideals are desecrated, crushed, and depleted. The colonialists regard
their culture as better, and their beliefs are frequently based on Cultural
Evolutionary or Social Darwinist theories. In order to dominate, profit from, and
“civilize” indigenous peoples, colonialists undermine indigenous cultures by
imposing their own. There is a destruction of the cultural values and ways of life
style. The colonialist's philosophy and beliefs define and develop languages,
clothing, and practices. The colonial system does not destroy native culture in and
of itself; rather, the culture, which was originally fluid, living, and open to the
future, is labelled, defined, and constrained by the colonial system's interpretation,
imposed oppression, and ideals.
Their continual and well-founded desire is to be free of their colonized status,
which adds to an already repressive situation. To that aim, they try to imitate the
colonizer in the sincere hope that he will stop seeing them as aliens. As a result of
their attempts to forget the past, to change collective habits, and their enthusiastic
acceptance of Western language, culture, and religion, they have made significant
progress. Therefore, John Coffey sees himself as a dog because his mind was
invaded by the imposition of the white people’ perception. His consciousness is so
invaded that he believed he is a real dog. That is exactly what colonialism does to
the colonized, it causes what is known by “Colonial alienation of the person”,
which later distorts the way we perceive ourselves.
Fanon says:” violence frees the native from his inferiority complex and from
despair and inaction. It makes him fearless and restores his self-respect”. Yet
Coffey was even deprived from that right and never thought of revolting violently.
His psychology was corrupted enough to be able to stand for his own right.

In conclusion, I think Stephen gave a sense of preference and supremacy of

black people over the white ones when he sets the comparison between the brutal
Percy and the merciful Coffey. Additionally, the fact that Paul is still alive, yet
forced to suffer emotionally, proves to be as much of a curse as a gift, as if Stephen
wants to tell Coffey “Son, you are free by your death, death is real salvation;
because life is the real punishment”.

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 Just like John Coffey, who is happy to die if it would cause him liberation
from life’s cruelties, Paul realizes that he, too, almost wishes to die. He writes,
“We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh
God, the Green Mile is so long”.

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 Works Cited:
1. King, Stephan, “THE GREEN MILE”, vol. 1, 5 Upper St Martin’s Lane,

Orion House, London, 1998.

2. “What Is a Colonized Mind?” INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY, 2018, pp. 1–3,

indiancountrytoday.com/archive/what-is-a-colonized-mind.
3. Mille Team. “7 Signs You Have Colonial Mentality.” MILLE, 2020, p.1,

www.milleworld.com/signs-of-colonial-mentality.
4. “Communities of Memory, Entanglements, and Claims of the Past on the

Present: Reading Race Trauma through The Green Mile.” Taylor and
Francis Online [U.S.A], 3 Jan. 2010,
www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15295030903551017?journalCode=r
csm20.
5. the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

(OHCHR) in cooperation with the United Nations Educational, Scientific

and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Dimensions of Racism. Vol. 1, Paris,
New York and Geneva, 2003.
6. Fanon, Frantz, “The Wretched of the Earth”. Vol. 1, New York, GROVE
PRESS, 2000.

7. Smedley, Audrey, Professor of Anthropology, Virginia Commonwealth

University, Author of Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a

Worldview, “Racism.” BRITANNICA, 2013, pp. 1–10,
www.britannica.com/topic/racism.
8. Bayly, Susan. “Colonialism / Post-colonialism.” The Cambridge

Encyclopedia of Anthropology, vol. 1, 2016, pp. 1–4,

www.anthroencyclopedia.com/entry/colonialism-postcolonialism.

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9. Alavi, S. 1993. The Company army and rural society: the invalid thanah

1780–1830. Modern Asian Studies 27, 147-78.

10. Arnold, D. 2000. The new Cambridge history of India: science, technology

and medicine in colonial India. Cambridge: University Press.

11. Barlow, T.E. 1997. Formations of colonial modernity in East Asia. Durham,

N.C.: Duke University Press.

12. Bayly, S. 1999. Caste, society and politics in India from the eighteenth

century to the modern age. Cambridge: University Press.

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