Paul Edgecombe, the narrator of Stephen King's novel The Green Mile, is a character faced with many moral dilemmas. He works at a job where he sees injustice and the judgment of the state placed on the inmates there. Looking at the economic situation of society, he sees good men going without work and unable to provide for their families. "Better men than me were out on the roads or riding the rails. I was lucky and I knew it." (p.46) Paul tries in his own personal way to right the wrongs of the brutal treatment of the inmates with kindness, and tries to quiet his conscious when the time comes to put a man to death. Paul Edgecombe's meditations and thoughts on other characters are insightful and show us a great deal about his personality and beliefs.

Mr. Edgecombe is a married man with grown children. He took a job at Cold Mountain Penitentiary to support himself and his family long ago. Now, during the economic depression of the nineteen thirties is unable to quit, despite how he feels. The narrator seems to be an educated man with a definite ethical standpoint, a conscience, and strong religious beliefs. He makes references to Edgar Allen Poe (p.100) and Lewis Carroll' s A

His inner conflict is repeated in many ways throughout the book but was best stated, "We once again succeeded in destroying what we could not create." (p.99) Paul Edgecombe does not want to sit in judgment of people; he believes that job belongs to a higher power. "Well, hell - judge not, lest ye be judged, the Bible says, so I'll get down off my soapbox." (p.144) He is forced to carry out the judgment of the state on his inmates. It is a memory that will haunt him until the end of his days. He feels compelled to write his memoirs after he is an old man to get rid of his demons and to remember John Coffey.

Our narrator tries to make the best out of a very bad situation. He tries to fight the moral dilemma that being a guard on the green mile has placed on him. He tries to make the best, and do his best, in the very grimiest of circumstances. His humanity shows throughout the book. "You don't need to know about what a man's done in order to feed

Whereas the character Percy Whitmore, also a guard, is brutal and mean to the prisoners Paul sees his duty as providing a little bit of comfort and consolation to inmates before they die. " We functioned most usefully not as the guards of the condemned men but as their psychiatrists" (p.42) Paul hates w

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 848
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)