At the end of The Green Mile, we find that Tom Hanks is about 108 years old, all because John Coffee zapped him giving him unwanted longevity in the process.
To prove this to his lady friend, he shows her the mouse of the story, Mr Jingles, who was also zapped, and so is also still alive and living in a shoebox. Now, if Tom Hanks is tired of life at 108, one can only imagine the torment that Mr Jingles is living in having lived the equivalent of over a thousand human years in mouse terms.
So, should Tom Hanks have cracked Mr Jingles skull for the second time and put him out of his misery? And more importantly, would you?
I don’t believe animals possess the cognitive ability to become so bored with living that a mercy killing is necessary, so, no I wouldn’t. As long as the animal in question is not in pain, is able to eat, etc. the animal wouldn’t what more. I haven’t seen the film, so I don’t know if the extended life span is painful to the recipients or not.
No. First, mice don’t think hugely faster than us as far as I know, so it isn’t like he’s actually lived a subjective thousand years. And second, there’s no reason to assume that all or even most creatures are going to get tired of life as easily as Hanks’ character (108 years isn’t even unnaturally long!) And third, Jingles is a mouse and applying human standards and concerns to a mouse is iffy at best. And if anything, if Hanks is that concerned over the mouse being unhappy, he should let him out of the box as a solution instead of crushing skulls.
Mr. Jingles does die shortly after Elaine meets him. That lets Paul Edgecombe know that he’s not immortal, and that he’ll die someday … “but oh, God, the Green Mile is so long.”
At what point then does it become necessary? Its a good point that if it isnt in pain, then it should be allowed to continue, and in the film Jingles can still get out and do the spool trick. But, although they havent died, they are still aging. Tom Hanks is 108 and a frail old man, what will he be like when he is a thousand? The quality of life must be pretty poor after a thousand years of aging.
In mouse terms, Mr Jingles is over a thousand years old, how could it possibly not be in some sort of discomfort?
I guess he could top himself, but it is presented as if he considers his ongoing life as his penance for being the man to kill John Coffey, so as a god fearing man it is something he would not do.
There’s no reason to think that lives of different normal lengths have some kind of subjective equivalence in the first place. I expect that a mouse that lives three years experiences three years, whatever that means to a mouse. It has nothing to do with how long some other species might live.
For that matter, creatures without consciousness don’t have the accumulative subjective experience that we do. A superannuated mouse might feel decrepit in the moment, but I doubt he’s going to be tired of life the way a superannuated person might be.
At the advice of his wife Jan, Paul asked John if he wanted to die. It was only after John said yes that they went ahead with the execution, making it as painless as possible.