So, I have read The Green Mile, but it was many years ago and I don't remember having these thoughts on Coffey while reading it, but I recently watched The Green Mile adaptation with Tom Hanks (amazing movie, by the way), and I picked up on a few hints that might indicate that Coffey is immortal- at least, in the Tolkien's elves sense of the word.

Clue #1 is the obvious- Coffey is able to pull sickness, injury, and even death out of a person or animal and into himself, and seemingly 'infects' whomever he does this to with longevity. It would stand to reason that he is passing on some kind of life force he holds within himself when he does so. If Mr Jingles and Paul lived decades past their 'expiration date', then Coffey probably had a lot of life in him to expend easily.

Clue #2 is when Melinda asks Coffey when he comes to take her suffering from her where he got his scars, and he replies that he 'don't hardly remember, ma'am.' The scars on his body, to me, look like whipping scars. This, in conjunction with the way he addresses the men on the Mile as 'boss', seems to imply that he was a slave at some point- even though he couldn't be older than perhaps 40 years old, and couldn't have possibly been born into slavery.

Clue #3 is hard to articulate, but Coffey seems to be extremely disenchanted with life despite his relative youth. Perhaps he is merely depressed, but the way he describes the pain and loneliness he's experienced makes me feel as though he's spent more than 3 or 4 decades suffering and observing suffering. The instinct to live is very strong in most people- while I could certainly believe Coffey is more likely to be depressed than most people, he also takes joy in simple pleasures, something most suicidally depressed people generally struggle to do. I think it's more likely that he is just plain tired with living.

Thoughts?