How Does John Coffey Relate To Sociology

John Coffey (Michael Clark Duncan), an immense black man wandering the backwoods of the South in the 1930s is found sobbing and holding the naked bodies of two young, Caucasian girls. “I couldn’t help it,” John Coffey says, holding the girls in his arms. They had been raped and then murdered. As he lay there, bloody, with two violated girls on his lap, tears begin to stream down his face. “I tried to take it back, but it was too late,” he says. Coffey’s words trace with unsavory imagery of the act he supposedly committed, but it is only in a much vaster context that the significations of his words will redefine their meaning.
Sociology explains the reasons why people act the way they act, do the things they do, and say the things they say.
Establishing a behavioral base for miscellaneous human actions is what sociologists attempt to exhibit through their studies of human behavior. The discovery of sociology is something that we all live in and with, and it is left up to those who study it to help the general public gain a better comprehension of individuals behave the way they do. The Green Mile displays several behaviors, which puts into perspective why certain actions are performed. For instance, when the angry farmer and his neighbors are looking for the one responsible for the murder of the farmer's two daughters, it was simply human nature to believe the one enormous black man in the town, John Coffey, was the murderer.
This particular story took place in Alabama during the year of 1932. During this time, segregation and racism were conspicuous
in the southern states. Just because Coffey is a black man, he was accused of killing the two little girls without anyone even questioning it or looking to see if someone else might have been to blame. Little did they know, John Coffey had a special ability to heal. His subtle spiritual power could be said to represent the power of God at work. Although the society was going through a time of social strain and substantial change, religion could play as a key role in returning the shared norms and values of the society thus reinstating social order as well as helping the society to resist all evil and to see the good in others.
In this film, sociological concepts and theories can be convenient in considering how societies rule the behaviors in life within different cultural times and places.
The, Functionalist Perspective Theory, a theory developed by sociologist Emile Durkheim, profoundly applies throughout the film. From issues discussed, the film seems to have marked the depraved leaders and unjust justice systems that supplied to selfishness as people subverted social expectations that summon for respect of rights and needs of others. People in this society only seem to obey their natural state of selfishness and greed, a condition that has gradually helped grow the abrasion of society values and eventually led to total disregard for order and amity. In other words, this is considered to be an anomie, a social condition in which norms are weak, absent, or inconsistent. As seen through the characters in the film who only have a desire to destroy and kill, this is dangerous and harmful to all. The authority of collective conscience, social norms and values in this society have been weakened through external shocks. However, through religion and education, collective consciousness and society values could be restored to reciprocate the shared norms, values and social order. Social systems are to maintain equilibrium and to return to that balance even after such external shocks that have disturbed the stability among the members of this society. Determined enforcement put on socialization of
members of the society into basic values and norms of the society could help it reach a consensus. A society should be viewed as completely united with all parts of institutions working together, as one, toward achieving overall social unity. In The Green Mile, everyone was seeking to harm one another. In the society presented in the film, it lacked compassion and respect for humanity. There was no social order nor stability, but only a mutual will to maintain order through executions. Specifically, the execution of John Coffey. In this society, killing was the order of the day. It was not only Coffey’s death that was desired. This also falls in relation with Durkheim’s theory because it insists that crime is both practical and unavoidable in any society. Corruption was evident in this society. It all begins with the society’s collective sentiments being too weak to prevent any deviance from the law. This shows that there were neither continual reaffirming of shared values nor were there any shared beliefs passed down from one generation to another. This selfishness is the one, all-important situation responsible for the collapse of this society.