2) John Coffey
“I’m sorry Mr. Jingles, but I gots to go.” Executed for a crime he didn’t commit, the character of John Coffey in Frank Darabont’s The Green Mile is bestowed with many messianic traits. Framed for the murder of two young girls, the gentle giant is put on death row where his saviour-esque qualities emanate to all those around him. Adapted from Stephen King’s eponymous novel, this is a story that very much alludes to the latter part of Christ’s life. His final days as a misunderstood healer are mirrored remarkably well within the narrative, and the way in which Coffey is juxtaposed with his two in-mates mirrors the good thief and bad thief that Jesus was crucified alongside at Calvary.
There are many other similarities within The Green Mile that suggest the film’s underlying religious foundations. For example, Coffey’s supernatural healing ability is most certainly paralleled with Christ, plus, when the child-like character describes his psychic ability, he says it resembles ‘pieces of glass, stabbing him in the head’, itself serving as an allegorical crown of thorns. During the film, Melinda gives John a pedant of St. Christopher, the patron saint of healing, as a gift for reliving her of a cancerous tumour. Additionally, the way in which John coughs up tiny spores painfully after each healing emphasises the struggle he goes through in order to help. His unique ability greatly affects those around him and, even after he is gone, his life has affected both Tom Hank’s Paul Edgecomb and Mr. Jingles in gifting them everlasting life.
Here is a character that chose death. Tom Hank’s sympathetic prison guard grants Coffey with an opportunity to escape his capital punishment, but he refuses. The fact that it was Billy the Kid who we later find to be guilty of Coffey’s alleged crime shows just how Michael Clarke Duncan’s misconstrued hero was executed for who he was, rather than what he did. A point to note, too, is that his initials are that of Christianity’s messiah, further emphasising the religious DNA in The Green Mile’s anatomy.
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