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AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree ofSarjana Sastra
In English Letters
By
SELVIE FEBRIANIE Student Number: 024214027
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
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show love and the readiness to help
others.
(Albert Schweitzer)
Human power to choose enables them to think
like angel or demon, king or slave. Whatever
the choices, it will be created and realized by
their minds.
(Frederick bailes)
OUR GREATEST GLORY IS NOT IN NEVER
FALLING, BUT IN RISING EVERY TIME WE
FALL
(Confucius)
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who contribute much in my life:
My dear parents ‘Mimom’ and ‘Pipop’
My dear sister ‘’Cim-com’
Opa Supit Lambertus Ngantung in Manado
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I thank you My Lord Jesus Christ, for always accompanying me in every condition that I face. I believe that in Your guiding only I could accomplish everything, including this thesis.
My deep gratitude goes to Dr. Novita Dewi, M.S., M.A. (Hons.) as my Advisor. I am very surprised that I could accomplish my thesis in two months. I am greatly helped by your ideas and suggestions which are extremely valuable. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dra. A. B. Sri Mulyani, M.A. as my Co-Advisor for detailed suggestions for improving my thesis.
My great and deep gratitude goes to my dear parents, Agung Widodo, Bc.Hk and Sofie Yosefien Ngantung for being the best parents. I am very blessed to be your daughter. When I am feeling down, both of you always motivate me and make me strong. Your life experiences have taught me much. For my sister, Bertha, thank you for accompanying me during my library study.
I truly thank to my friends in Pelita Group, Budi and Mas Yudho for helping me to finish my business. I would not forget to thank Pdt. Yusak E.W and Mbak Arum who help me with the computer. My friends in GKI Prambanan, thank you for taking over my position and finishing my works. I thank also my friends in English Letters 2002, my ‘twin’ Dini, Shella, Ori, David, Swesty, Ferdi, Thomas, Dodi, Meme, and thank you for English Letters Department Sanata Dharma University. I do really appreciate all the helps given to me. God bless us.
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A. Background of the Study... 1
B. Problem Formulation ... 6
C. Objectives of the Study ... 7
D. Definition of Terms... 8
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW... 10
A. Review of Related Studies ... 10
B. Review of Related Theories ... 12
B.1 Theories on Character ... 12
B.2. Theories on Setting... 13
B.3. Theories on Narrative Reading and Plot ... 14
B.4. Theories on New Historicism... 17
C. Review on social condition in America in Depression Era ... 18
D. Review on Capital Punishment ... 20
E. Theoretical Framework ... 25
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ...27
A. Object of the Study... 27
B. Approach of the Study ... 30
C. Method of the Study... 31
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS... 34
A. The Depiction of The Badness of Capital Punishment through the story of Characters and Settings... 34
A.1.Lowering the Value of Human Life, Throwing Away Humanity... 35
A.2. Unfair Trial... 39
A.3. No Chance of Rehabilitation ... 41
A.4. Execution of the Innocents ... 44
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B.1. Lowering the Value of Human Life, Throwing Away
Humanity... 52
B.2. Unfair Trial ... 56
B.3. No Chance of Rehabilitation ... 61
B.4. Execution of the Innocents ... 64
B.5. Legalizing the Act of Killing... 65
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION... 69
BIBLIOGRAPHY... 76
APPENDICE... 79
Appendix 1: Summary of Stephen King’sThe Green Mile... 79
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SELVIE FEBRIANIE (2007). THE EVILS OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: A READING TOWARD STEPHEN KING’S THE GREEN MILE. Yogyakarta: Departament of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.
Capital punishment has been an endless topic for debate as its practice has created pro and contra from its supporters and opponents. Many criminals are punished in the name of justice and law through the system of capital punishment. Nevertheless, something done in the name of justice and law is not always right or perfect. Depression era in America has been a witness from this kind of punishment.
This study is to analyze the above issue by asking two questions: first, how the badness of capital punishment inThe Green Mileis depicted through the story of the characters and settings. Second, how the badness of capital punishment is contextualized with the situation and condition in America during the Depression era and with the world in general as well.
To do the analysis, several steps were applied. First, the primary data and the secondary data were gathered. The data consisted of Stephen King’s novelThe Green Mile as the primary data. For the secondary data, the information about capital punishment, Depression era, and the situation and condition of the world in general was gathered. Second, a close reading was conducted both of the novel
The Green Mileas the literary text and the information about capital punishment and depression era as the non-literary text. The theories which were used were theories of character, theories of setting, theories of narrative reading and plot, and theories of new historicism. The approach which was used was new historicism approach.
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SELVIE FEBRIANIE (2007). THE EVILS OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: A READING TOWARD STEPHEN KING’S THE GREEN MILE. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Hukuman mati telah menjadi topik perdebatan yang tidak pernah usai karena prakteknya telah menciptakan pro dan kontra baik dari para pendukungnya maupun dari para penentangnya. Banyak penjahat dihukum dalam nama keadilan dan hukum melalui sistem hukuman mati. Walaupun begitu, sesuatu yang dilakukan atas nama keadilan dan hukum tidak selalu benar atau sempurna. Jaman Depresi di Amerika telah menjadi saksi atas hukuman semacam ini.
Skripsi ini adalah untuk menganalisa permasalahan di atas dengan mempertanyakan dua pertanyaan: Pertama, bagaimana keburukan hukuman mati di The Green Mile dipaparkan melalui kisah para karakternya and latar belakangnya. Kedua, bagaimana keburukan hukuman mati dikontekstualisasikan dengan situasi dan kodisi di Amerika selama jaman Depresi dan dengan dunia pada umumnya.
Dalam menganalisa, beberapa metode digunakan. Pertama, data utama dan data pendukung dikumpulkan. Data terdiri atas novel Stephen King The Green Mile sebagai data utama. Sebagai data pendukung, informasi mengenai hukuman mati, jaman Depresi, situasi dan kondisi dunia pada umumnya dikumpulkan. Kedua, pembacaan seksama dilakukan terhadap novel The Green Mile sebagai teks sastra dan informasi mengenai hukuman mati dan jaman Depresi sebagai teks non-sastra. Teori-teori yang digunakan adalah teori karakter, teori seting, teori membaca naratif dan plot, dan teori historisme baru. Pendekatan yang digunakan adalah pendekatan historisme baru.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Capital punishment or death penalty is often the subject of controversy. Opponents of the death penalty argue that life imprisonment is an effective substitute for capital punishment that may lead to miscarriages of justice, for example, wrong conviction. On the other hand, supporters believe that the death penalty is justifiable. It can be argued, however, whether capital punishment is right or wrong since it deals with human life.
Talking about life is an endless topic. Human can be in the world because they have life, their souls are alive. As Edward Koch states in his essay that life is indeed precious (1996: 321). Although we occasionally say that “ you can kill the body but not the soul”, it does not have any meaning for people today, for people recognize others by identifying their physical body. Those who are known although they had died long time ago are people who can influence the world. Although their physical appearances do not exist in the world anymore, people still recognize them, such as Albert Einstein who had given his contribution to the world through his scientific findings. But, how about them who are condemned to die because of their criminal acts? What memory people will have about them, since they do not have a chance to change their life in a better track?
The only thing that people will remember about them is the way they die. The narrator in The Green Mile, the literary work to be discussed in this thesis, says, “ The only thing most of these people will remember about you is how you go out, so give them something good”(1996: 112). This quotation describes how ironic the life of the convicted person is.
A question will soon arise regarding the fairness of the punishment. Should capital punishment be the last way to close the case? Does it solve the real problem? According to an article entitled
“Justice and the Nature of Moral Community” in
(www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~tonya/spring/cap/group1.htm), each year in America there are about 250 people added to death row and 35 executed. The death penalty is the harshest form of punishment enforced in the United States today. Once a jury has convicted criminal offence they go to the second part of the trial, the punishment phase.
Punishment is a kind of consequences for what the criminal had done in the past. We believe that every country has its own rules and laws. The criminal is punished according to the law in the country where he or she committed crime. In the case of crime done outside his or her country, he or she will be returned to the country of origin and punished there. The question is what kind of punishment he or she will receive. The worse the crime is the heavier the punishment will be.
punishment is a part of contentious issue. Supporters of capital punishment argue that it deters crime, prevents recidivism, and is an appropriate retribution for the crime of murder. Opponents of capital punishment argue that it does not deter crime more than life imprisonment, violates human rights, leads to some execution of some who are wrongfully convicted, and discriminates against minorities and the poor.
It is still fresh in our memory about the execution of Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva, and Marinus Riwu. They are three Indonesian people who were condemned to die by shooting because of the chaos in Poso, which took more than 1000 victims. They were executed on 21 September 2006. Many people said that it was not fair since they only did the job that was ordered to them. Why did not government punish the one who created the chaos? But, it is useless to reopen the case since Tibo and friends had died while they were the key witnesses to find the real person behind the chaos.
Jeremy Bentham in his work “Rationale of Punishment” (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12565a.htm) says that death is regarded by most men as the greatest of all evils. As we know that evil is the source of all bad things. Dealing with evil will lead us into suffering.
By seeing this issue from literature, it will hopefully change a paradigm of thoughts for the readers regarding capital punishment.
John Horton in Literature and The Political Imagination (1996) says that, “ Many such novels seem to speak, and some profoundly, about questions concerning the nature of human experience” (p.70). Literary works such as drama, poem, and novel are often used to reveal a certain topic. For some writers, it is enjoyable to record the thoughts or ideas in pieces of papers than to utter them directly and then in the next day people will forget about that. Horton also states that novels tell us how to live, how society should be organized, or what is right or wrong (p.70). Sometimes, people do not care for what we are talking since it is a habitual activity. But, when people read a certain text and find something interesting there and learn from it, it will be a different case.
Literary works can be the way for the writers to criticize, or raise a certain issue in order to draw public opinion. A writer often hopes that the readers can give their opinions, concerns, or just attentions on matter or issue revealed in his or her work.
The writer of the present thesis would agree here that The Green Mileis King’s response toward capital punishment.
story of John Coffey, a giant, solemn, and gentle inmate condemned to death for the rape and murder of twin-nine-year-old girls. Coffey is described as someone who only "knows his own name and not much else", and lacks the ability to do more complicated things. John Coffey is condemned to death because of raping and killing two little girls. Soon, he will be executed on an electric chair. It is a story narrated years later by Paul Edgecomb, a superintendent who has the duty to help every prisoners spend their last days peacefully. It is his job also to make sure that every man walks the green mile to the execution with his humanity intact.
Edgecomb has sent seventy-eight inmates to their date with “Old-Sparky”, but he is never encountered one like Coffey, a man who wants to die, yet has the power to heal. And in this place of ultimate retribution, Edgecomb discovers the terrible truth about Coffey’s gift, a truth that challenges his most cherished beliefs.
The above story of The Green Mile is the proof that we cannot deny that, sometimes, human’s character and condition can be interesting subjects to discuss. The guards and the prisoners’s characteristics in The Green Mile are defined well as well as the situation and the condition in the prison. It is also about the condition of the characters’s emotion, mental, moral, etc.
of the right or wrong verdict about capital punishment will not be given. However, the readers will let their minds find their own opinion whether capital punishment is right or wrong through the founding in the analysis. Therefore, the founding about the badness of capital punishment will be listed, and it is up to the readers to define whether it is right or wrong to be applied as a punishment system since the subject is human life. There have to be a strong reason to support or to oppose the system of capital punishment. As Barnet and Bedau states in their book Current Issue and Enduring Questions(1996) that reason may not be the only way of finding the truth, but it is a way we often rely on. By setting our minds to a problem, we can often find reasons for almost anything we want to justify (p.35). Reason is important in justifying something. A right thing can be wrong when it does not have strong reason. On the contrary, something wrong can be right when it has a strong reason.
B. Problem Formulation
Referring to the topic above, the writer states two problem formulations in order to guide the analysis as follows:
1. How does King’s The Green Mile depict the badness of capital punishment through the story of the characters and settings?
C. Objective of the Study
The focus of the thesis is on the badness of capital punishment that will be analyzed through the story. The badness is the same as the evil. Since capital punishment has been an endless debate, the analysis is focused on its badness although there are people who support also the capital punishment.
It is noticed earlier that there are many capital punishments done in order to punish the criminals. It does not happen only in one country, but also in many countries. Every time this kind of punishment is done, it will be a phenomenon. Debates soon emerge and continue for years.
Given the problem above, the first problem formulation is meant to depict the badness of the capital punishment. Through characters and settings in the story, the depiction of the badness of capital punishment will be clear. Since the story is in narration, it is interesting to use the story itself in the analysis. The characters become the means to analyze the badness since the story in The Green Mile is rich in characters. It means that The Green Mile describes many characters and they are told in humane way although some of them are prisoners. The settings are used also as the supporting means.
happened) and with the world in general. The situation and condition in the world in the past and in the present are used for meaningful comparisons since the situation and condition always change from time to time.
D. Definition of Terms
There are four terms to be defined in this study: ‘capital punishment’, ‘badness’, ‘contextual’, and ‘evil’.
1. Capital Punishment
According to John K. Roth inInternational Encyclopedia of Ethics(1995: 118), capital punishment is the execution for a crime on the grounds of justice and/or deterrent benefit to society. The history of the practice raises the question of ‘cruel and unusual punishment’. Execution has occurred through many ways such as cruxification, hanging and burying alive. Today, the methods are gas chamber, electric chair, and lethal injection.
There is another definition about capital punishment from
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. It is stated that capital punishment, or the death penalty, is the execution of a convicted criminal by the state as punishment for crimes.
2. Badness
evil, faulty and immoral. Therefore, the meaning of badness is the quality of being evil, fault, and immoral. Since the definition is negative, ‘badness’ is related to ‘not good things’ (84).
3. Contextual
The word ‘contextual’ is often heard. To limit the meaning, ‘contextual’ is defined according to The Concise Oxford Dictionary. ‘Contextual’ means parts that precede or follow a passage and help to fix the meaning. The other meaning is circumstances in which an event happens (259).
4. Evil
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
This chapter is divided into five parts. The first part is the review of related studies which consists of criticisms from the experts and comments about the object of the study,The Green Mile; the second is the review of related theories; the third is the review of social condition of America in the Great Depression especially on the issue of capital punishment; the fourth is the review of capital punishment; and the fifth is the theoretical framework.
A. Review on Related Studies
Since it is difficult to find the sources from the published books, many of the sources below are taken from the Internet site. However, for a balance, one source from a published book is applied.
In an article entitled “ The Green Mile”
(http://web.tiscali.it/luigiurato/king/greenmile.htm), a reviewer states that morallyThe Green Mileis a story about wonder and the faith in God. It is also about moral conflicts and about the death penalty. It is said that King himself does not give the readers his personal opinion about capital punishment. He just draws this issue and puts it in his novel. He says, ” but I guess he against it because most of the inmates are described to be so human”.
To add, there is a review about the work and the topic taken from (http://www.bookrags.com/shortguide-green-mile/copyright.html)
Because The Green Mile is an anti-capital punishment exemplum, characters are defined morally in the simplest terms. King emphasizes the fundamental humanity of the two men who are the first to be executed, Arlen Bitterbuck and Eduard Delacroix. While King tells the reader that the two men are murderers, he shows them speaking and acting with such dignity, love, and simple faith that one perceives their executions as evil, unnatural acts.
The two men are described in human way. Here, King implies his idea that capital punishment is wrong. He shows that idea through The Green Mile. However, King does not show his disagreement on capital punishment directly. He shows it through the story of the characters and settings.
In On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000), the author does not state directly that capital punishment is wrong. He raises a question, which is simple but deep in meaning, if God does really exist, why that kind of terrible thing could happen (298).
Another comments on The Green Milecome from Aaron as stated in (http://members.aol.com/tishede/king.htm). Aaron says that King uses his story as an effective vehicle for social commentary about racism and capital punishment, but without lecturing. Stephen King is the most talented writer alive today. His novel,The Green Mile, can deliver his idea about capital punishment.
says, “I ordinarily I can’t stand Stephen King, but I really grew to like this story as I went along, I now know way too much about life on Death row”.
The Green Mileis also used to tell the readers about life on death row. It is more interesting to read a literary text and get some information from it than to read a non-literary text. However, with the theory which is explained later, the writer would like to make non-literary text is enjoyable to be read as well as literary text, since some people tend to choose reading literary text. Reading a story and getting information at the same time are more enjoyable.
The writer agrees with several comments above. It is wrong when people take other people’s life considering that everyone has the right to have life. In this thesis however, the writer emphasizes on the badness of the capital punishment. It is the evil of capital punishment. Evidence is more important than speech. It will be explained further in the analysis. Besides supporting the already existent study about capital punishment, the writer adds on new perspectives.
B. Review on Related Theories 1. Theories of Character
disposition qualities that are expressed in what they say-the dialogue-and what they do-the action.
Holman and Harmon also state their character definition that character is a complicated term that includes the idea of the moral constitution of the human personality, the presence of creatures in art that seem to be human beings of one sort of another (1986: 81).
Character is also defined as a description of identifiable type of person. The type of person can be seen from his or her speech, action, appearance, and manner (Baldick, 1990: 34).
2. Theories of Setting
Since the work describe the situation happen in 1930s, theory of setting is applied in order to help the analysis.
Robert and Jacobs start it with the theory. In their bookFiction: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, Robert and Jacobs say that setting refers to the natural and artificial scenery or environment in which the characters in literature live and move (1987: 29).
Holman and Harmon present the other theory. As stated in their book A Handbook to Literature, setting as the physical, and sometimes spiritual background against which action or narrative (novel, drama, short story, poem) takes place. There are four elements to make up setting: a. The actual geographical location, its topography, scenery. And such
b. The occupation and daily manner of living characters.
c. The time or period in which the action takes place, for example, religious, mental, moral, social, and emotional conditions through which the people in the narrative move (1986: 465).
3. Theories on Narrative Reading and Plot
Narrative is often used in novel since it deals with story. It is the art of telling stories. Narrative makes stories alive and shows how one event led to another. In this part also, the theory on plot will be applied. Narrative has close relation with plot.
Jonathan Culler in Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction
(1997) says that narrative structures are pervasive. He notes Frank Kermode, another critic, about narrative. Frank says that when a person says a ticking click goes ‘ tick-tock’, we give the noise of a fictional structure, differentiating between two physically identical sounds, to make
tick a beginning and tock an end. The clock’s tick-tock he takes to be a model of what people call a plot, an organization that humanizes time by giving it form. (79)
the attempt to study the nature of the ‘story’ itself as a concept and as a cultural practice (p.223).
Peter Barry also puts another narratologist’s theory in order to make his book rich. Gerald Genette states six basic questions about the act of narration.
a. Is the basic narrative mode ‘mimetic’ or ‘diegetic’?
‘Mimesis’ means ‘showing’ or ‘dramatizing’. It uses specified setting and dialogue that contain direct speech. It is ‘slow-telling’.
‘Diegesis’ means ‘telling’ or ‘relating’. The narrator just says what happens, without trying to show it as it happens.
b. How is the narrative focalized?
Focalization means ‘viewpoint’ or ‘perspective’, which is to say the point of view from which the story is told.
c. Who is telling the story?
One kind of narrator is not identified at all as a distinct character with a name and a personal history, and remains just a voice or a tone.
but an outsider to it. Second, it is homodiegetic. Narrator is present as a character in the story he tells. First person narrators may be either heterodiegetic or homodiegetic. They may be telling someone else’s story, rather than their own. Omniscient narrators are necessarily heterodiegetic.
d. How is time handled in the story?
Narratives often contain references back and references forward. Sometimes the story will ‘flash back’ to relate an event which happened in the past (analeptic). On the contrary, the narrative may ‘flash forward’ to narrate, or refer to, or anticipate an event which happens later (proleptic).
e. How is the story ‘package’?
First, a ‘single-ended’ frame narrative is one in which the frame situation is not returned to when the embedded tale is completed.
Second, ‘double-ended’ frame narrative is one in which the frame situation is reintroduced at the end of embedded tale.
Third, ‘intrusive’ is that the embedded tale is occasionally interrupted to revert to the frame situation.
f. How are speech and thought represented?
It may be a direct speech or indirect speech. The choice is belonged to the writers. (2002: 231-239)
events that are also related to one another by cause and effect” (516). Events are arranged in chronological order and they are related one another by cause and effect.
4. Theory of New Historicism
‘ New Historicism’ was first introduced by Stephen Greenbalt in 1982. In his essay “ Resonance and Wonder”, Stephen Greenbalt says
“The new historicism obviously has distinct affinities with resonance; that is, its concern with literary texts has been to recover as far as possible the historical circumstances of their original production and consumption and to analyze the relationship between these circumstances and our own. New Historicist critics have tried to understand the intersecting circumstances not as stable, prefabricated background against which the literary text can be placed, but as dense network of evolving and often contradictory social forces. The idea is not to find outside the work of art some rock onto which literary interpretation can be securely chained but rather to situate the work in relation to other representational practices operative in the culture at a given moment in both in history and our own”.
Bijay Kumar Das in his bookTwentieth Century Literary Criticism
(2002) states that the most important aspect of the New Historicism is the concern with the reading of the text which is determined by the ‘position’ from which the readers read it and the ‘context’ in which ‘test’ is written (181).
New Historicism is defined well by Peter Barry in his book
text, usually at the same historical period (172). In simple word, new historicism read the literary and non-literary text together.
To make it clearer, Peter Barry also puts another definition about new historicism in his book. This definition is offered by an American critic Louis Montrose. He defines new historicism as a combined interest in ‘the textuality of history, the historicity of texts’ (172-173).
He also adds that the new historicism involves ‘an intensified willingness to read all of the textual traces of the past with the attention traditionally conferred only on literary text’.
C. Review on Social Condition in America in the Depression Era The Depression was a period where economic activity was stagnant and at an all time low in many countries of the world. The effects of the stock market crash of 1929 that ensued in Depression Era in the United States lasted from the beginning of 1930 to the late 1930s.
According to several sources such as Our Nation From Its Creation (1964), A People and A Nation (1984), andAmerican Realities
had perhaps the most striking blow because the demand fell sharply and there were hardly any other alternatives.
Beginning in the United States, the Depression spread to most of the world’s industrial countries, which in the 20th century had become economically dependent on one another. People lost their jobs, homes, and savings, and many depended on charity to survive. In 1933, at the worst point in the Depression, more than 15 million Americans—one-quarter of the nation’s workforce—were unemployed. Therefore, people who had job would keep their job although the wages were low and the jobs do not fit with their wishes.
The impact of the Depression on individual was gradual. Most people remained unemployed, but each day thousands received severance slips. Unemployment increases from 4 million at the beginning of 1930 to 13 million in early 1933. Farmers, brandishing shotguns to prevent foreclosures, defied the law to defend their homes. In The Green Mile, the work to be analyzed, the Detterick family whose twin-little-girls are raped and murdered also has guns although they are cotton farmer.
the roads. Everyone—Blacks as well as Whites—thought it was going to be better over the next jump of the land. John Coffey, one of the characters inThe Green Mile, is also a wanderer since he has no family.
The court’s condition during the Depression was very bad, especially for the Blacks. In America's history, capital punishment had been assigned out of all possible proportion to Black inmates over White ones, strongly suggestive of racist practices institutionalized within the penal system. There was not much people can do during Depression time except waiting.
Roosevelt, the president at that time, had policies that won the support of labor unions, Blacks, people who received government relief, ethnic and religious minorities, intellectuals, and some farmers, forming a coalition that would be the backbone of the Democratic Party for decades to come.
D. Review on Capital Punishment
Edward I. Koch, a mayor of New York from 1978 to 1989 and is still active in Democratic politics, states in his essay “ Death and Justice: How Capital Punishment Affirms Life” that execution can never be made humane through science. It is not the method that really troubles opponents. It is the death itself they consider barbaric (1996: 322). Koch does mind on the method of capital punishment. Whether the condemned person is put to death painlessly, without ropes, voltages, bullets, or gas. Killing is killing. The act of taking human life can be made in many ways according to the state policy. Whatever people call the method, killing is wrong. Koch also says that the execution of lawfully condemned killer is no more an act of murder than is legal imprisonment an act of kidnapping (1996: 325).
In America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (except Israel) most countries still retain the death penalty for certain crimes and impose it
with varying frequency
(http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/shootinh.html).
According to (http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/issues/pu-sbd2.htm), there are several methods to do the capital punishment.
Lethal injection may appear to be more humane than other methods, to the witnesses, but is a very slow process. It usually causes unconsciousness in under a minute but this does not always happen. There is considerable debate and litigation going on at present as to whether the first chemical causes full unconsciousness. The biggest single objection to lethal injection is the length of time required to prepare the prisoner, which can take from 20 to 45 minutes depending on the ease of finding a vein to inject into, which is vital for a painless death.
The gas chamber seems to possess no obvious advantage as the equipment is expensive to buy and maintain, the preparations are lengthy, adding to the prisoner's agonies, and it always causes a slow and cruel death. It is also dangerous to the staff involved.
Shooting by a single bullet in the back of the head seems greatly preferable to shooting by a firing squad in that it is likely to cause instant unconsciousness followed quickly by death rather than causing the prisoner to bleed to death, often whilst still conscious.
At the Roman time, there was crucifixion as the method. Crucifixion was a method of inflicting capital punishment by nailing or trying malefactors to pieces of wood transversely placed the one upon one another. The incidents of crucifixion were that the criminal, after the pronouncement of sentence, carried his cross to the place of execution. The criminal was next stripped of his clothes, and nailed or bound to the cross. The latter was the more painful method, as the sufferer was left to die hunger.
According toEncyclopedia of Ethics(1995), capital punishment is present in the earliest criminal codes and is probably as old as civilization itself. Hammurabi’s code, in the eighteenth century B.C.E., provided for capital punishment for a number of offences, including murder, putting a death spell on another, lying in capital trial, and adultery (118).
Frank G. Kirkpatrick in (http://www.philosophy-religion.org/kirkpatrick/capital-pun.htm) states that the issues were simply one of the effectiveness and fairness of capital punishment, the debate could be easily settled. It is manifestly unfair: African American men (over 95 percent of whom were too poor to hire their own lawyers) were almost four times as likely to receive the death penalty than nonminorities. Eighty percent of people sentenced to death were convicted of killing Whites even though minorities make up more than half of all homicide victims. It is also increasingly clear that people have been sentenced to death without adequate defense or a chance to have exculpatory evidence presented during the increasingly restricted appeals process.
As Abel Martinez in
(http:/www.cwrl.utexas,edu/~tonya/spring/cap/group1.htm) state in her essay
“ Capital punishment is a barbaric remnant of an uncivilized society. It is immoral in principle, and unfair and discriminatory in practice. It assures the execution of some innocent people. As a remedy for crime, it has no purpose and no effect”.
In the same source as Abel Martinez, Leslie Cantu states also in her essay about capital punishment as follows:
“The death penalty is wrong morally because it is the cruel and inhumane taking of human life. The methods by which executions are carried out can involve physical torture”.
A human being’s life does not belong to only the community. It is a part of the universal scheme of life. Everybody is placed in the world by the divine law for divine and universal purposes, and there is nothing that can give human the right to legalize the taking of life.
Taking others’ lives is morally wrong since every human being has the right of life. Unfortunately, one of the methods of punishment is capital punishment or death penalty. It is the method that requires the taking of the criminals’ lives. In short, the criminals must die as the compensation of their crimes. They must pay for what they did before no matter that now they have changed into better men.
During the Depression times, the number of capital punishment was the greatest. According to the survey done by US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice statistic, there were 1791 convicted to death.
E. Theoretical Framework
Theories on character, theories on setting, theories on narrative reading and plot are applied to answer the first problem. The depiction of the badness of capital punishment in the story of the characters and settings are appropriate to be analyzed by the above theories.
CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
This chapter consists of three-parts of discussion. The first is the object of the study, second, the approach to analyze the work, and the third is method of the study.
A.Object of the Study
The genre of literature, which is being analyzed here, is a novel entitled
The Green Mile written by Stephen King. The Green Mile (1996) is a serial novel. It is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc., with all six volumes in a trade paperback. More or less as a challenge, Stephen King published this story as a serial in six parts. Just as in Charles Dickens' time, the story was crafted while the book was already in production. In keeping with the serial concept, the first edition consists of six thin, low-priced paperbacks.
It is a fiction novel that contains the reality happened in the past, especially the condition and situation of the Louisiana State Penitentiary Death Row during the Depression Era.
Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author best known for his enormously popular horror novels. King was the 2003 recipient of The National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
The Green Mile was adapted by Frank Darabont for the screenplay of a feature film of the same name in 1999, directed by Darabont, starring Tom Hanks as Paul Edgecomb and Michael Clarke Duncan as John Coffey. The movie was nominated for the Academy Award and The Golden Globe. While the novel itself won Bram Stoker Award in 1997.
The Green Mile has contributed much to the idea of capital punishment. It gets many responses from its readers and critics on how people suppose to react on the issue of capital punishment.
The main characters are the inmates and guards of the E Block on Cold Mountain Penitentiary. The book has a clear narrative voice belonging to the captain of the guards, Paul Edgecombe. "The Green Mile" is the corridor from the cells where the prisoners live to the execution room beyond Paul Edgecombe's office. Similar corridors leading to execution rooms at other prisons are called the "last mile". The linoleum flooring of this corridor is green. The story takes place in the 1930s (the book in 1932 and the film in 1935), but there is also a framing plot where Paul is shown as an old man in a nursing home, trying to exorcise the ghosts of his past through writing.
The story centers on John Coffey, an almost seven-foot Black man who is condemned to death because of raping and killing two small white girls. He is notable because of his size and also for his strange behavior; he is very quiet and prefers to keep to himself, he weeps almost constantly, and is afraid of the dark. He is the calmest and mildest prisoner the guards have ever seen, despite his hulking form. Besides John Coffey, there are two other prisoners on the cell block during the main period the book focuses on. One of them, Eduard Delacroix, a convicted arsonist, rapist, and murderer, is small and cowardly. The other, William Wharton, is tough and boasting, claiming to be a modern Billy the Kid. When Paul looks even before the 1930s, he recollects about warding the Chief, a Native American named Arlen Bitterbuck, and the Prez, a former CEO who killed a relative, hoping to collect life insurance money.
The story also features Mr. Jingles, a small and unnaturally intelligent mouse who befriends Delacroix. He appears much earlier than Delacroix, and Paul speculates he was looking for the Cajun. The mouse learns various tricks and appears to follow commands; Delacroix insists that the mouse whispers things in his ear. After the two meet, Delacroix practically falls in love with the mouse, and Mr. Jingles ceases his cell searching.
they call a "gift from God". They finally execute Coffey, but not before he passes on an unnatural lifespan to both Mr. Jingles and Paul. In the end, Mr. Jingles dies of old age at the age of 64 in Paul's nursing home, Paul reveals to the reader how his wife died, and we learn that Paul is 104 years old, and how he wonders how much longer he has got to stay. The book ends with this quote: "We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green mile is so long."
B.Approach of the Study
Since the thesis deals with the contextuality of capital punishment in fiction and reality, the approach, which is applied here, is new historicism approach. The writer has her own reason by using this approach since this thesis deals with two kinds of text, which are literary text and non-literary text. Both of the texts are compared each other in order to find the best solution to answer the problem formulations, especially problem formulation number two.
new historicists emphasis on a new kind of reading of the Renaissance texts springs from the idea of ‘rehistoricizing’ the text in order to make it relevant to the present (172). Here, history is not used as the background of the story but history also has the role as the text.
Although The Green Mile is not written in the Depression Era, but this novel uses Depression Era as the setting of time, condition, and situation. The situation and condition in Depression can be seen through the story in this novel.
It is hoped by using the new historicism approach; the analysis can be easily understood. Therefore, the readers will recognize the writer’s intention to write this thesis and know why the writer chooses the topic. The important point is that the readers can understand the topic being analyzed.
C. Method of the Study
For completing all the sources, the writer conducted library research and Internet browsing. In this method, there were two types of source, primary source and secondary source. However, since new historicism theory and approach were applied, there were two kinds of text, literary and non-literary text.
non-literary texts which were chosen. The first book wasCurrent Issues and Enduring Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking and Argument, with Reading. This book is published in 1996, the year when The Green Mile is written. It was to see whether there was an influence or not from the situation in 1996 toward the writing of the novel. The second book was A People and A Nation: A History of The United Stateswhich described about the condition and situation in 1930s. For answering the two problem formulations, several books were gathered as the references.
Some steps were done in order to finish the research. The first step was doing a close reading for the novel The Green Mile. The focus was on the characters, the settings, and how the capital punishment was done in the story. The second step was finding some books as the references such asA Glossary of Literary Terms,Literature and the Political Imagination, Writing with A Purpose, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, An Introduction to Fiction, Beginning
Theory, The Shape of Fiction, Structure, Sounds, and Sense, Literature.
Introduction: Reading, Studying, and Writing about Literature, Fiction: An
Introduction to Reading and Writing, A Handbook to Literature, Twentieth
Century Literary Criticism, The Happy Critic, Our Nation From Its Creation: A
Great Experiment, andAmerican Realities.Some essays taken from Internet were also read in order to gather the sources as complete as possible.
Next, the writer also applied an approach to analyze the topic. It was new historicism approach.
The analysis was divided into two parts. First, it was to discuss the first problem on the badness of capital punishment. The second part discussed the second problem, i. e. the contextualization of the badness of capital punishment depicted in the novel and in reality.
CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS
The analysis is divided into two main parts. The first part is the depiction of the badness of capital punishment in Stephen King’s The Green Mile. The badness of capital punishment is depicted through the story which is seen through the characters as well as the settings. Since there has been a study that discussed capital punishment from economic, politic, social, moral, and religious part, the writer chose other perspectives.
The second part of the analysis is the contextuality of the badness of capital punishment inThe Green Milewith the situation and condition in America during the Depression Era and with the world in general. The situation and condition in the world in general, especially on the application of capital punishment, will be a valuable information in this analysis. In this part, the analysis is focused on the parallel reading between the novel as the literary text and the real situation in America during Depression Era and the situation in the world in general as the non-literary texts. The badness of capital punishment that has been depicted well in the first part will be analyzed through contextualization. Whether capital punishment described in the novel is exactly the same, or different with the reality about capital punishment in America at Depression Era is analyzed here. This part will hopefully give a clear analysis about the evil of capital punishment.
A.The Depiction of The Badness of Capital Punishment Through the Story of
the Characters and Settings.
A.1.Lowering the Value of Human Life, Throwing Away Humanity
Capital punishment makes the value of human life becomes low. There is no appreciation to the prisoners although they are, likewise, human beings. The prisoners are treated as being less human. In this story, it is done by Percy Wetmore, one of the guards in E-Block. He is a new guard there. Considered his family relationship with the governor, it is funny that he chooses to work in a prison than other better places. Percy is young and brash, with a penchant for a cruelty and violence. He is bubble just waiting to brush. All the other guards who befriends with Paul Edgecomb, hates Percy.
He hesitated again, looking nearsightedly around almost as if expected to see that the walls had grown ears, before finishing: “Someone like Percy Kiss-My-Ass-and –Go-To-Hell Wetmore.”(66)
“ Huh,” Brutal said. “The day Percy Wetmore sits his narrow shanks down here at this desk will be the day I resign.”(66)
No one likes Percy because of his bad treatment to the prisoners. Percy also treats the other guards every time he experiences uncomfortable situations with them. He will report them to his uncle, who is a governor, so that they can be punished or even fired.
has been a good company for Eduard Delacroix. Delacroix is sentenced to death because of raping and murdering. He quarrels with Percy since he always laughs at Percy’s foolness and because Percy always tries to kill his mouse. Anytime Percy has a chance, he always tries to hurt Delacroix.
“Let me at im, let me at im!” Percy cried, lunging forward. He began to hit at Delacroix’s shoulders with his baton. Delacroix held his arms up, screaming, and the stick went whap-whap-whap against the sleeves of his blue prison shirt. (122)
Every time Percy has a chance to do something bad toward Delacroix, he will not throw that chance away. It seems that he enjoys it. it happens because Delacroix is a prisoner and Percy is a guard. Percy thinks he can do anything as a guard. He acts like a real guard. Once the prisoners are sentenced to death, they will be considered died although they are still alive. It is what in Percy’s mind. There is no difference between corpse and human being. Although Delacroix and the other prisoners are alive, sooner or later they will be executed and be corpses. Therefore, in Percy’s mind, what is the difference between corpse and something that is going to be corpse? He treats them for those two different things the same. Although the prisoners are still alive, their life values are nothing. It is up to the guard, like Percy, to treat them. It is clear described when Percy brings John Coffey in to the prison.
It was Percy Wetmore who ushered Coffey onto the block, with the supposedly traditional cry of “Dead man walking! Dead man walking here!” (10)
Percy considers him as a dead man. In Percy’s mind it is his role to be portrayed as a brutal guard. He emulates a violent man with arrogance and believes that he has to demonstrate his power over to the prisoners and he says and does as he pleases with little regards to others. Percy is excluded from the other guards because of his hateful and arrogant behaviour.
Since his hatred to Delacroix is accumulated, Percy begins to think that human life is not worthy, especially Delacroix’s life. It is described in the bad death of Eduard Delacroix. His execution is terrible. Everyone who can see this execution will agree that Delacroix’s execution is inhumane and cruel. It because Percy sabotages the execution. Delacroix’s life seems nothing for Percy. He plays human’s life as if toy. In the night before Delacroix’s execution, a terrible event happens between Percy and Delacroix. It involves Delacroix’s mouse, Mr. Jingles. It is possible because of this incident Percy plans to take his last revenge on Delacroix. Paul Edgecomb describes it very clearly in his narration.
Just as Mr. Jingles reached the spool—to intent on it to realize his old enemy was at hand—Percy brought the sole down on him. There was an audible snap as Mr. Jingles’s back broke, and blood gushed from his mouth. His tiny black eyes bulged in their sockets, and in them I read an expression of surprised agony that was all too human. (261)
person who takes revenge for bad things that happen to him. This kind of person is dangerous since he cannot share his feelings to others. All uncomfortable moments drive him mad. His mind is full with negative things.
Delacroix is one of the victims of this kind of person. The execution, which is supposed to be the last way of the prisoners to leave the world in peace, turns into and awful and cruel execution, for example, when there is no water running down in Delacroix’s cheeks in last seconds nearing to the execution.
There was no water running down Del’s cheeks from out of the cap. The sponge is dry. (292)
In an execution, the sponge is supposed to be wet. The wet sponge is used to deliver the electric pulse to the body faster, so that the condemned person will not feel too long painful execution. He will die directly. What follows are the description of Delacroix’s execution. It is described by Paul Edgecomb himself, as the narrator and the executor of the execution.
The humming lost its steadiness and began to waver. It was joined by a crackling sound, like cellophone being crinkled. I could smell something horrible that I didn’t identify as a mixture of burning hair and organic sponge until I saw a blue tendrils of smoke curling out from beneath the edges of the cap. (293)
It shows that something unnatural happens in the execution. Paul realizes that there is something wrong.
of pain from beneath the smoking mask, sound an animal caught and mangled in a hay-baler might make. (294)
If capital punishment is ever justified, surely, in order to retain any of the moral high ground, to avoid committing exactly the same wrong doing as a punishment for which someone is being killed, it must be done as humanely and decently as possible.
Referred to the execution of Eduard Delacroix, the question that will soon arise is in which part the execution is called humane and decent. The fact that happens is the execution that runs cruelly and terribly. To torture someone to death would precisely be failure to respect the humanity of someone else and ourselves. We would be guilty of exactly the same crime we think is wrong enough to justify torturing someone to death. In his last way to leave the world, Delacroix is supposed to get a peaceful execution. Death is already a terrible thing. So, why the process to die is made cruel. It is the same as giving double punishments. First, the condemned persons receive the death as the punishment. Second, the method of death punishment is the same as punishment. It is what Delacroix receives as his compensation of doing such a crime.
A.2.Unfair Trial
twin nine-year-old-girls. He is described as giant, Black, and silent. The narrator, Paul Edgecomb, described John Coffey from his appearance at the first time they met.
John Coffey was Black, like most of the men who came for a while in E-Block before dying in Old Sparky’s lap, and he stood six feet, eight inches tall. He wasn’t all willowy like the TV basketball fellows, though—he was broad in the shoulders and deep through the chest, laced over with muscle in every direction (10-11)
It is clear that John Coffey is a Black status has driven him into unfair trial. It always happens that Blacks are discriminated against. When we read a postcolonial text or literary story, which tells about Black and White. It is always White who becomes the master and Black becomes the slave. Such is not fair, since it happens and happens without stopping. From the very beginning, the paradigm of Black under White is like a ‘fixed thing’. It cannot be changed.
This racial discrimination also happens in The Green Mile. It seems that Stephen King does not want to be left behind in inserting this prejudice and unfairness in his story. Racial issue is one of the world’s significance issues since people need to be careful when dealing with this. Not least because this problem is very sensitive. There have been many victims who died because of this problem.
“ In many ways, a good mongrel dog is like your Negro,” he said. “You get to know it, and often you grow to love it. It is of no particular use, but you keep it around because you think it loves you.” (202)
“ In that way also Sir Galahad was like you Southern Negro, who will not do those things for himself.” (203)
John Coffey’s attorney compares John to a dog that bit his child’s face and this even further into the three societal reaction perspectives. Society labels the individual and the individual begins to identify with the label. Lastly, the individual lives with the label and John Coffey is labeled without further ado. The attorney keeps labeling John Coffey as Black and not worthy of a man. It is also what the Chief of Trapingus County thinks.
“ And if you’re thinking of getting him a new trial on the basis of this one thing, you better think again, senor. John Coffey is a Negro, and in Trapingus County we’re awful particular about giving new trials to Negroes.”(466)
In trial, Blacks are discriminated against. In John Coffey’s trial, there is no White lawyer intents to help him except for money. It is already preconditioned that the label of Black is always to place Black People in the lower status than their White counterparts. It is not fair at all since the subject to compare is only on the race.
A.3.No Chance of Rehabilitation
the handsome and somewhat impetuous Dean Stanton, the veteran Harry Terwilliger, and the narrator of this story Paul Edgecomb.
Since the first time Delacroix arrives at Cold Mountain, he has made a good relationship with the good guards there, except with Percy Wetmore, a newcomer who is a sadist and coward. The guards are those who help Delacroix with his mouse. They also give Delacroix a chance to show Mr. Jingles’s attraction to the staff in Cold Mountain as a gift before he is executed. To remember on how Delacroix joined in E-Block is useless, since there is nothing good in it. It is a record of an awful crime. Delacroix begin to experience to be a better man when he starts to build a relation with the guards. There is an understanding, which exists between most of the guards and the prisoners. The prisoners are getting ready to die, and the guards do their best to respect the remainder of the prisoners’s lives. It is showed through Delacroix’s relationship with the guards. They do their everyday life like friends. One thing that separates them is only their status as prisoners and guards. But, of course, they build the relation with certain limitations. For example, the guards still do their responsibilities as guards. They know the limitation and what their status means. Therefore, the relation between the prisoners and the guards can work well. It can be seen through the way the narrator tells about Delacroix.
a guardian angel, but had decreed in His wisdom that only a mouse would do for a rat like our homicidal friend from Louisiana. (48)
The narrator, Paul Edgecomb, tells about Eduard Delacroix as if he tells about his good relative. He knows what Delacroix feels the way someone knows his or her friend’s feeling. Paul tells about the mouse since its role is central and has a double aspect. The mouse highlights the humanity of the prison guards. The mouse, which is adopted literary and took care by Delacroix, entertains them and the guards give him food. It is clear described how good the relation between Delacroix and the guards. The guards realize that Delacroix’s life is no longer again since the date of the execution is nearing. It makes them doing their job more seriously than before. They do things that can help Delacroix to receive his life’s condition, which is no longer again. The mouse is the only one thing that can make Delacroix feel calm down. But, during their assistance to Delacroix, they are also entertained by the mouse’s presence.
It was the way you got them into the chair sitting in the end of The Green Mile with their sanity intact. I couldn’t keep all those promises, of course, but I kept the one I made to Delacroix. As for the Frenchman himself, there had been hell to pay. The bad’un had hurt Delacroix, hurt him plenty. Oh, I know what he did, all right, but no one deserved what happened to Eduard Delacroix when he feel into Old Sparky’s savage embrace. (73) Experiencing to be a good man does not guarantee Delacroix gets a pardon in punishment. He stays to be executed. To be a better man is just a process while he lives in the prison waiting for his execution. Execution must be continued. It is different with imprisonment punishment. The prisoners still have a chance to prove that they have changed when they are released. It can be said that capital punishment takes the chance of rehabilitation. It is impossible for corpses to make rehabilitation.
A.4.Execution of The Innocents
This part is best analyzed through the story of John Coffey. At the first reading of the novel, the readers are convinced that John Coffey is really guilty. He is condemned to death because of raping and killing the twin-nine-year-old-girls, Cora and Kathe Detterick.
“Do you leave a light on after bedtime?” he asked right away, as if he had only been waiting for the chance. (18)
I blinked at him. I had been asked a lot of strange questions by newcomers to E-Block—once about the size of my wife’s tits—but never that one. (18)
The narrator describes John Coffey whose mannerisms are similar to that of a child. He is soft-spoken, extremely polite, and afraid of the dark. This kind of person is impossible to do such a crime. By doing many investigations himself, Paul finds that it was not John Coffey who did that crime. It was done by someone else who later comes to the E-Block because of another crime, William Wharton. Janice, Paul’s wife, does not believe that John did the crime.
Ironically, John Coffey has healed several people from their illness and those people cannot do something to help him. John has cured Melinda Moores, the warden’s wife, from her brain tumor. DOE (Date Of Execution) paper has come for John Coffey. It creates a dilemma for the warden and the guards who will run the execution. They will execute the man who helps them. Moreover, he is not guilty at all. John’s condition, which is innocent, and Melinda who is helped by John are described well in the quotation below.
She’d had her own DOE papers handed to her by those doctors, but John Coffey’s had torn them up. Now, however, it was Coffey’s turn to walk the Green Mile, and who among us could stop it? Who among us would stop it? (464)
The attempt to help John Coffey is already too late. His case will not be opened again. Moreover, the punishment that goes to him has been fixed. The only thing that they can do is to try their best to accompany John Coffey in his last time living in the world. John deserves to get a good treatment during his last days in the prison, mentally, physically, and spiritually.
A.5.Legalizing the Act of Killing
Paul Edgecomb, the narrator, has sent about 78 men to be executed. It is true that it is his job, but stopping the life of 78 men is not easy. It fights against his belief in God. He must be strong mentally and morally.
In the eyes of God, killing others is wrong. There is no such rule in the world that killing others is allowed. Capital punishment shapes a mentality to kill for people. If capital punishment is opened its cover, something that is left is ‘the act of killing’. Capital punishment is like a euphemism that softens the word ‘killing’ into a more proper one since it deals with legal justice. Whatever the methods and the reasons, it takes human life. In the story, there is apart that shows, indirectly, Paul’s disagreement to the act of capital punishment.
There was never a time during my years as block superintendent when all six cells were occupied at one time—thank God for small favor. Four was the most, mixed black and white (at Cold Mountain, there was no segregation among the walking dead), and that was a little piece of hell. (4)
Even Paul Edgecomb as the superintendent is not comfortable with the job that he does. He considers the prison, where the prisoners live, as a little piece of hell. It is true that he runs the government law to punish the criminals. But, the method, which is used, is by stopping the life. It is the same as killing. In other words, Paul has killed people so far. He has done ‘the act of killing’ which is in his religion as a Christian is forbidden to take other’s lives. Mentally, Paul can do the killing, an act that he never imagines he can do.
paradigm that killing is allowed although in capital punishment only. However, it creates unconscious mind of the permission to kill. Since it is an unconscious mind, human can do it without being realized. Unconsciously, they begin to legalize ‘killing’. Murdering crimes happen because this kind of mind influences the criminals. They will not imagine that in their crime they can kill, while in their plan they just want to steal, rob, rape, etc. it proves that spontaneous reaction is influenced by the unconscious mind. Capital punishment creates an unconscious mind ‘allow to kill’.
If capital punishment is justified, sooner or later people will receive this kind of punishment as a usual punishment. It means that capital punishment will be the same as other punishment. Of course the criminals who receive capital punishment are the most dangerous ones. Once capital punishment is receiver by people, at the same time, their mind will also receive ‘the concept of allowing to kill others’. Capital punishment or death penalty is the act of taking human life as a punishment and the consequences of the crime.
It is fine if ‘the concept of allowing to kill others’ is only in the context of capital punishment and in the other contexts people will consider that that killing others is wrong and sinful. However, human’s mind is so complicated. Human’s reaction toward something is fast and unpredictable. They do things that are forbidden.
someday they will do it without being realized. It is the same as the concept of breathing, because it has been fixed in their mind. The same also happens when we cry if we experience a sad moment. Or, it is the same as people paradigm that connect women with kitchen. It is part of their unconscious mind. They do it without realizing it because in their mind they have dealt and agreed with ‘the concept of allowing to kill others’.
is by keeping the job. This situation is experienced by the narrator of the story, Paul Edgecomb.
I suspect there are people who wouldn’t understand why that was. Even after I’ve said, but they would be people who only know the phrase Great Depression from the history books if you were there, it was a lot more than a phrase in a book, and if you had a steady job, brother, you would do almost anything to keep it.” (124)
Paul does not want to do his job to execute the inmates. Morally, it fights against his heart. However, Paul keeps doing the execution since his job is important for financing his family.
Reading the story of The Green Mile and the analysis in this thesis, it is known how Paul Edgecomb’s character is. He keeps his principle, loves others by treating them the same as he treats himself. However, this kind of person dares to take others’s lives. Why? It is his job to do so. Paul fights against his heart and his principle to do the job. Paul agrees to do his job because it is legal. He agrees with this taking of life in his job only.
criminal records have showed what kind of person he is. Below is a little description about Wharton by the narrator.
“Crazy-wild and proud of it, has rambled all over the state for the last year or so, and has hit the big time at last. Kill three people in a holdup, one a pregnant woman, killed a fourth in the getaway. State Patrolman. All he missed was a nun and a blind man.” (49)
Why is it so easy to take human life? Who teaches them to kill? The answer is no one. So, how can they dare to kill others? It because there have been others who have done the act of killing before. It is also the mentality to kill is universally taken and agreed. Such action then comes to people’s unconscious minds. It becomes part of mind.
B.The Contectuality of the Badness of Capital punishment inThe Green Mile
with the Situation and Condition in America during Depression Era and with the World in General.
Situated in the Depression Era, the story of The Green Miledoes not want to loose its elements. Socio historical background in which the story occurs is one of the important elements worthy of examination.
To review briefly the background which is in the Depression Era, it is the time when America collapsed, especially in economic field. Although it just in one sector only, it influenced other sectors. Everything was hit by the Depression effect. It damaged the United States both physically and psychologically. It ruined thousands of business people and hurt millions of laborers. It destroyed the dreams as well as the jobs. People did many things and everything in order to survive. The system of capital punishment occurs during Depression Era and continues until present. The contextualization of the badness of capital punishment in The Green Mile with the reality in Depression Era and with the world in general can be found in this part.
B.1.Lowering the Value of Human Life, Throwing Away Humanity
as sadist and brutal guard, treats all the prisoners as if they do not have the life value as human beings and less humane. Below is the example of Percy’s treatment toward one of the prisoners, Eduard Delacroix.
He came with an unexpected bang. The door leading to the exercise yard slammed open, letting in a flood of light, there was a confused rattle of chain, a frightened voice babbling away in a mixture of English and Cajun and French (a patois the cons) at Cold Mountain used to call da bayou) and Brutal hollering, “Hey! Quit it! For Chrissakes! Quit it, Percy!” (121-122)
Percy treats Delacroix in inhumane way as if he deserves to receive that kind of treatment. Before receiving his real punishment, capital punishment, Delacroix has received other punishment, bad treatment from Percy Wetmore. Although it does not torture him the way the electric chair will torture him, it tortures his feeling.
Some arguments about the humaneness of the death penalty apply only to specific methods of execution. Of methods of execution currently in use the electric chair and the gas chamber are widely seen as producing great pain and suffering in the victim. The suffering caused by a method of execution is also often exacerbated in the case of “botched” executions. Those who make this argument also insist that the knowledge of one’s impeding death causes tremendous psychological suffering. This suffering, exacerbated by the long period often spent by convicts in the United States on death row, have together been described as the death row phenomenon, which is considered by some to be a form of torture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_debate).
