Ethical Issues In The Green Mile

To begin, the movie I chose to do my project on is The Green Mile. I chose this movie because I had seen it before and I knew that it would be great for this project because of how it hits many ethical issues including racism and treatment of criminals. Even though I have seen the movie before, I watched it again as a refresher. As I watched the movie I found myself drawn in, I had forgotten how good of a movie it was. Not only does it hit topics such as racism, it also has a great theme which can be interpreted in different ways. As I assume you know, the movie centers around John Cofee (purposely spelled unlike the drink), and Tom Hank’s character Paul. As the movie began when of the first things I noticed was even though John Cofee was a convicted murderer Paul and the other prison guards treated John Cofee fairly while bringing him into the prison. One reason that it stood out to me so much was because John was a convicted child murderer, but he also was a black man during a time that was still filled with racism. With all that in mind Paul nor any of the other guards treated him unfairly. They got him in the cell and ask him if he had any questions, and did not use any excessive force or hateful language. Throughout the movie I see many instances of fair treatment to the convicts, granted every convict on

Out of all the guards Percy was the only one that did not show good morals or ethics. Throughout the movie you see Percy do horrible things like squash Mr. Jingles, and not wetting the sponge during the execution. While I watched the movie, it was hard for me fathom how evil of a person Percy was. He may have even been the evilest person on the green mile. I found it extremely ironic that Percy who was wicked, helped monitor inmates that were considered evil. When really, he himself should have been behind those bars in my mind because he was just as evil as any of