The Green Mile

The Green Mile

by

Stephen King

John Coffey Character Analysis

Despite his intimidating size, John Coffey is sensitive and non-violent. He is mostly illiterate (the only thing he can spell is his own name) and, like a child, is afraid of the dark. In prison, he spends most of his time crying for the suffering of other people. He has extraordinary healing powers, which lead the guards on E block to consider him a conduit for God’s will. After revealing these powers to the guards by healing the injured Mr. Jingles as well as Paul’s painful urinary infection, Paul decides to break Coffey out of prison so that he can heal Melinda Moores of her fatal brain tumor. Paul then discovers Coffey to be innocent of the crime for which he was sentenced, but sees no way around having to execute the innocent man. Despite the injustice of his sentencing and execution, Coffey proves willing to die, having grown weary of sensing the suffering and cruelty of the world. Nevertheless, Coffey believes in retribution and, when he discovers that Wharton is the true rapist and murderer of the Detterick twins, he uses his gifts to make Percy kill Wharton in his cell. The only black man in the story, Coffey is often the victim of racism, in the legal system as well as among ordinary individuals. In the end, he is executed on the electric chair for a crime he never committed, but not before he has passed some of his gifts onto Paul, enabling Paul to read the thoughts of others and making him impervious to the effects of old age.

John Coffey Quotes in The Green Mile

The The Green Mile quotes below are all either spoken by John Coffey or refer to John Coffey. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Death and the Death Penalty Theme Icon
).
Part 1: Chapter 4  Quotes

I think they would have given a good deal to unsee what was before them, and none of them would ever forget it—it was the sort of nightmare, bald and almost smoking in the sun, that lies beyond the drapes and furnishings of good and ordinary lives—church suppers, walks along country lanes, honest work, love-kisses in bed. There is a skull in every man, and I tell you there is a skull in the lives of all men. They saw it that day, those men—they saw what sometimes grins behind the smile.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey, Kathe and Cora Detterick
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: Chapter 6  Quotes

I don't want you to forget him, all right? I want you to see him there, looking up at the ceiling of his cell, weeping his silent tears, or putting his arms over his face. I want you to hear him, his sighs that trembled like sobs, his occasional watery groan.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey
Related Symbols: Medal
Page Number: 111
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 3 Quotes

I helped it, didn’t I?

Except he hadn't. God had. John Coffey's use of “I” could be chalked up to ignorance rather than pride, but I knew—believed, at least—that I had learned about healing in those churches of Praise Jesus, The Lord Is Mighty, piney-woods amen corners much beloved by my twenty-two-year-old mother and my aunts: that healing is never about the healed or the healer, but about God's will.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey
Related Symbols: Medal
Page Number: 181
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 4 Quotes

Everyone—black as well as white—thinks it's going to be better over the next jump of land. It's the American damn way. Even a giant like Coffey doesn't get noticed everywhere he goes . . . until, that is, he decides to kill a couple of little girls. Little white girls.

Related Characters: Burt Hammersmith (speaker), Paul Edgecombe, John Coffey
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5: Chapter 1 Quotes

Writing is a special and rather terrifying form of remembrance, I’ve discovered there is a totality to it that seems almost like rape. Perhaps I only feel that way because I’ve become a very old man (a thing that happened behind my own back, I sometimes feel), but I don't think so. I believe that the combination of pencil and memory creates a kind of practical magic, and magic is dangerous. As a man who knew John Coffey and saw what he could do—to mice and to men—I feel very qualified to say that.

Magic is dangerous.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey
Related Symbols: Medal
Page Number: 314
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5: Chapter 2 Quotes

Hammersmith who had told me that mongrel dogs and Negroes were about the same, that either might take a chomp out of you suddenly, and for no reason. Except he kept calling them your Negroes, as if they were still property . . . but not his property. No, not his. Never his. And at that time, the South was full of Hammersmiths.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey, Burt Hammersmith
Page Number: 335
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5: Chapter 7 Quotes

I believe there is good in the world, all of it flowing in one way or another from a loving God. But I believe there’s another force as well, one every bit as real as the God I have prayed to my whole life, and that it works consciously to bring all our decent impulses to ruin. Not Satan, I don't mean Satan (although I believe he is real, too), but a kind of demon of discord, a prankish and stupid thing that laughs with glee when an old man sets himself on fire trying to light his pipe or when a much-loved baby puts its first Christmas toy in its mouth and chokes to death on it. I’ve had a lot of years to think on this, all the way from Cold Mountain to Georgia Pines, and I believe that force was actively at work among us on that morning, swirling everywhere like a fog, trying to keep John Coffey away from Melinda Moores.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey, Melinda Moores
Page Number: 372
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6: Chapter 6 Quotes

“My poor old guy,” she repeated, and then: “Talk to him.”

“Who? John?”

“Yes. Talk to him. Find out what he wants.”

I thought about it, then nodded. She was right. She usually was.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), Janice Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey
Page Number: 452
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6: Chapter 7 Quotes

“I mean we're fixing to kill a gift of God,” he said. “One that never did any harm to us, or to anyone else. What am I going to say if I end up standing in front of God the Father Almighty and He asks me to explain why I did it? That it was my job? My job?”

Related Characters: Brutus “Brutal” Howell (speaker), John Coffey
Related Symbols: The Green Mile
Page Number: 454
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6: Chapter 8 Quotes

“He kill them with they love,” John said. “They love for each other. You see how it was?”

Related Characters: John Coffey (speaker), William Wharton, Kathe and Cora Detterick
Page Number: 459
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6: Chapter 10 Quotes

Old Sparky seems such a thing of perversity when I look back on those days, such a deadly bit of folly. Fragile as blown glass, we are, even under the best of conditions. To kill each other with gas and electricity, and in cold blood? The folly. The horror.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey
Related Symbols: The Green Mile
Page Number: 475
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6: Chapter 13 Quotes

John saved me, too, and years later, standing in the pouring Alabama rain and looking for a man who wasn't there in the shadows of an underpass, standing amid the spilled luggage and the ruined dead, I learned a terrible thing: sometimes there is absolutely no difference at all between salvation and damnation.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey, Janice Edgecombe
Related Symbols: The Green Mile
Page Number: 497
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Green Mile LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Green Mile PDF

John Coffey Quotes in The Green Mile

The The Green Mile quotes below are all either spoken by John Coffey or refer to John Coffey. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Death and the Death Penalty Theme Icon
).
Part 1: Chapter 4  Quotes

I think they would have given a good deal to unsee what was before them, and none of them would ever forget it—it was the sort of nightmare, bald and almost smoking in the sun, that lies beyond the drapes and furnishings of good and ordinary lives—church suppers, walks along country lanes, honest work, love-kisses in bed. There is a skull in every man, and I tell you there is a skull in the lives of all men. They saw it that day, those men—they saw what sometimes grins behind the smile.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey, Kathe and Cora Detterick
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: Chapter 6  Quotes

I don't want you to forget him, all right? I want you to see him there, looking up at the ceiling of his cell, weeping his silent tears, or putting his arms over his face. I want you to hear him, his sighs that trembled like sobs, his occasional watery groan.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey
Related Symbols: Medal
Page Number: 111
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 3 Quotes

I helped it, didn’t I?

Except he hadn't. God had. John Coffey's use of “I” could be chalked up to ignorance rather than pride, but I knew—believed, at least—that I had learned about healing in those churches of Praise Jesus, The Lord Is Mighty, piney-woods amen corners much beloved by my twenty-two-year-old mother and my aunts: that healing is never about the healed or the healer, but about God's will.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey
Related Symbols: Medal
Page Number: 181
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 4 Quotes

Everyone—black as well as white—thinks it's going to be better over the next jump of land. It's the American damn way. Even a giant like Coffey doesn't get noticed everywhere he goes . . . until, that is, he decides to kill a couple of little girls. Little white girls.

Related Characters: Burt Hammersmith (speaker), Paul Edgecombe, John Coffey
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5: Chapter 1 Quotes

Writing is a special and rather terrifying form of remembrance, I’ve discovered there is a totality to it that seems almost like rape. Perhaps I only feel that way because I’ve become a very old man (a thing that happened behind my own back, I sometimes feel), but I don't think so. I believe that the combination of pencil and memory creates a kind of practical magic, and magic is dangerous. As a man who knew John Coffey and saw what he could do—to mice and to men—I feel very qualified to say that.

Magic is dangerous.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey
Related Symbols: Medal
Page Number: 314
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5: Chapter 2 Quotes

Hammersmith who had told me that mongrel dogs and Negroes were about the same, that either might take a chomp out of you suddenly, and for no reason. Except he kept calling them your Negroes, as if they were still property . . . but not his property. No, not his. Never his. And at that time, the South was full of Hammersmiths.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey, Burt Hammersmith
Page Number: 335
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5: Chapter 7 Quotes

I believe there is good in the world, all of it flowing in one way or another from a loving God. But I believe there’s another force as well, one every bit as real as the God I have prayed to my whole life, and that it works consciously to bring all our decent impulses to ruin. Not Satan, I don't mean Satan (although I believe he is real, too), but a kind of demon of discord, a prankish and stupid thing that laughs with glee when an old man sets himself on fire trying to light his pipe or when a much-loved baby puts its first Christmas toy in its mouth and chokes to death on it. I’ve had a lot of years to think on this, all the way from Cold Mountain to Georgia Pines, and I believe that force was actively at work among us on that morning, swirling everywhere like a fog, trying to keep John Coffey away from Melinda Moores.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey, Melinda Moores
Page Number: 372
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6: Chapter 6 Quotes

“My poor old guy,” she repeated, and then: “Talk to him.”

“Who? John?”

“Yes. Talk to him. Find out what he wants.”

I thought about it, then nodded. She was right. She usually was.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), Janice Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey
Page Number: 452
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6: Chapter 7 Quotes

“I mean we're fixing to kill a gift of God,” he said. “One that never did any harm to us, or to anyone else. What am I going to say if I end up standing in front of God the Father Almighty and He asks me to explain why I did it? That it was my job? My job?”

Related Characters: Brutus “Brutal” Howell (speaker), John Coffey
Related Symbols: The Green Mile
Page Number: 454
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6: Chapter 8 Quotes

“He kill them with they love,” John said. “They love for each other. You see how it was?”

Related Characters: John Coffey (speaker), William Wharton, Kathe and Cora Detterick
Page Number: 459
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6: Chapter 10 Quotes

Old Sparky seems such a thing of perversity when I look back on those days, such a deadly bit of folly. Fragile as blown glass, we are, even under the best of conditions. To kill each other with gas and electricity, and in cold blood? The folly. The horror.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey
Related Symbols: The Green Mile
Page Number: 475
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6: Chapter 13 Quotes

John saved me, too, and years later, standing in the pouring Alabama rain and looking for a man who wasn't there in the shadows of an underpass, standing amid the spilled luggage and the ruined dead, I learned a terrible thing: sometimes there is absolutely no difference at all between salvation and damnation.

Related Characters: Paul Edgecombe (speaker), John Coffey, Janice Edgecombe
Related Symbols: The Green Mile
Page Number: 497
Explanation and Analysis: