Between Flesh and Miracle: Phenomenological Dimensions of Pain and Healing in The Green Mile

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Abstract:

Qualify “theories about illness” – whose theories, what particular terminology -be indicative here.  Also, is it MR that makes the subject seem less serious, or is it King’s particular deployment of MR narrative modes that makes the subject less serious?  MR is a complex layering of effects: if King hasn’t quite pulled that off, then it’s King’s fault rather than the fault of MR (which isn’t a “tool” or ingredient, but a stylistic quality). 

Main body –

Line 37 – grammar - “Magical realism studies” – suggest: “Studies in magical realism”

Literature Review:

Line 111 – MR is not considered a literary genre but a style.  Also, the Latin American roots of MR is now a highly contested idea, a backward glance at the phenomenon showing that MR as a term was applied to Lat Am lit of the boom period without those authors necessarily espousing the definitions the MR term encompassed.  GG Marquez didn’t see his work as MR; he saw it as Colombian realism and is on record in The Fragrance of Guava as saying that there’s nothing in One Hundred Years of Solitude that doesn’t have a direct reference point in his lived reality.  When discussing the body of MR criticism, the writing here implies on a few occasions that the critical discourse on MR kind of stops with this problematic backward glance to Lat Am authors, but there has been a resurgence of critical interest in MR on this side of the millennium which looks at 21^st century literature from all over the globe, including Eurocentric/Western societies.  This is where the gap seems to be in the literature review, and where potentially fruitful connections could be made with The Green Mile.

The work on phenomenological psychopathology seems excellent to me – but it is so far beyond my field that I couldn’t meaningfully comment on its validity.  It’s clearly where the paper’s strengths lie, though, the research here being very detailed and heavily referenced in a way that the MR scholarship is not.

Theoretical Framework:

Line 280 – “reality goes beyond traditional rational processes” – I think the words “traditional” and “rational” need to be qualified – Whose tradition are we talking about here?  Whose rationalism are we assuming here?  The writing risks assuming precisely the kinds of distinctions that MR seeks to undermine. 

Analysis:  (The diagrams are not for me – this is probably a personal thing, though)

This is the section in which I need it proved, through careful close analysis, that the writing style is, indeed, describable as MR…

...What I get is a lot of information about things that happen/are visible in the text, but no close analysis of the writing itself.  Designation of a text as MR absolutely hinges on very close reading and careful critical argument of the stylistic effects of the writing itself – it is not enough to identify that inexplicable things happen, as this is also the case for sci-fi/fantasy/gothic.  Sadly, the text is held at arm’s length, out of sight here, just at the point where it needs to be under the microscope.  Telling me that “this is definitely an MR text” isn’t enough – I need to have this proven and get a strong sense of why that literary-critical terminology is being applied at all. 

The paper seems much stronger on the psychological aspects than on the literary-critical ones.  It is clear that the paper will need both aspects to be really successful 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your careful, detailed and constructive reviews of our manuscript. We thank you for your thoughtful engagement with the literary-critical and phenomenological aspects of this paper. Your comments were extremely helpful in improving the clarity, balance and scholarly positioning of the study.

Below, we respond to each point in detail.

1. Abstract: Clarification of “theories about illness” and the role of magical realism (MR)

Reviewer comment: Please qualify whose theories and clarify whether MR itself or King’s deployment of MR makes the subject seem less serious.

Response:
Thank you for this important clarification. We have changed the abstract to clarify that the article is based mainly on phenomenological psychopathology (e.g., Svenaeus and Carel) and illness narrative theory. We also made it clear that this study does not consider magical realism as a simple "tool" but as a stylistic mode. The revised version now makes it clear that the ethical ambiguity is a result of King's specific narrative deployment of magical realist stylistic strategies, rather than magical realism as a literary mode.

2. Line 37 – “Magical realism studies” (grammar)

Reviewer suggestion: “Studies in magical realism”

Response:
Thank you for pointing out this grammatical problem. The phrase has been changed to "studies in magical realism" to ensure more idiomatic academic usage and clearer expression.

3. Literature Review: Magical realism as style, not genre; Latin American origins debate

Reviewer comment: MR is better understood as a style; the Latin American origin narrative is contested; there is a need for engagement with 21st-century global MR scholarship.

Response:
We thank you very much for this insightful observation. The literature review has been updated as follows:

• Explicitly frame magical realism as a stylistic mode rather than a fixed genre
• Acknowledge the contested nature of its association with Latin American literature
• Emphasize the global and contemporary resurgence of magical realism criticism, including its application to Anglophone and popular fiction

We clarify that the study does not adopt a narrow or backward-looking model of magical realism but places King's work in a broader and global understanding of magical realism as a transnational narrative mode.

4. Balance between phenomenology and magical realism scholarship

Reviewer comment: The phenomenological section is very strong, while the MR scholarship is less developed.

Response:
Thank you for this perceptive assessment. We expanded the magical realism literature review to strengthen the literary-critical grounding of the study. The following points are highlighted:

• Global magical realism beyond Latin American contexts
• Distinctions between magical realism, fantasy and gothic
• Contemporary theoretical debates on the mode in 21st-century literature

This revision is an improvement in the balance between psychological/ phenomenological analysis and literary-critical interpretations.

5. Theoretical Framework: “traditional rational processes” needs qualification

Reviewer comment: Whose tradition and rationalism? The risk of assuming binaries undermines MR.

Response:
We agree with this concern completely. The manuscript explicitly explains for the first time, that "rational" refers to culturally specific Euro-American and Cartesian-Newtonian epistemologies of knowledge, rather than a universal rationality. This revision takes care to avoid essentialist assumptions and brings the argument much closer to the problem of magical realism with rigid ontological binaries.

6. Analysis: Need for closer stylistic reading of the prose

Reviewer comment: The text is held at arm’s length; MR must be proven through a close analysis of writing style, not just events.

Response:
This was one of the most valuable comments we received. In response, we have expanded the close-reading component of the analysis and incorporated detailed discussion of specific passages from the novel. The revised version now includes the following:

• Detailed examination of diction, syntax and narrative voice
• Micro-level analysis of specific passages (e.g., Coffey’s introduction, healing scenes and execution sequence)
• Discussion of tonal flatness, parataxis and defocalization as stylistic mechanisms

We now go on to explicitly show how prose itself creates magical realist effects rather than simply identifying supernatural events at the plot level.

7. Distinguishing magical realism from fantasy/gothic

Reviewer concern: Supernatural events alone do not prove the MR classification.

Response:
Thank you for this very important methodological point. The revision now clearly distinguishes magical realism from fantasy, allegory and gothic by emphasizing the following:

• Matter-of-fact narrative tone
• Lack of ontological explanation
• Stylistic continuity between the realistic and the impossible

This clarification directly addresses the reviewer’s concern regarding genre misclassification and strengthens the literary-critical justification for the MR framework.

8. Diagrams in the analysis section

Reviewer comment: Personal reservations about the diagrams.

Response:
Thank you for this honest feedback. We have explained in the Methodology section the fact that the diagrams are heuristic and supplementary, not substitutes for the textual analysis. We also made sure that all diagrams were consciously based on close readings of King's prose in order to be rigorous from a literary-critical perspective.

9. Overall balance: Psychological vs literary-critical strength

Reviewer comment: The paper is stronger in psychological aspects than in literary analysis.

Response:
We are thankful for this observation. In the revised manuscript, we have made the following changes:

• Increased the proportion of prose-based close reading
• Strengthened stylistic analysis of narrative voice and register
• More clearly integrated phenomenology with literary form rather than treating them as separate layers

This revision ensures that the paper is equally interested in psychological theory and literary-critical methodology.

Final Note

We sincerely thank the reviewers for their rigorous and constructive feedback. The comments helped us significantly refine the theoretical clarity, literary-critical depth and argumentative balance of the manuscript. We think that the revised version more successfully shows, by sustained close reading, how King's prose style can be analytically described in the framework of magical realism while preserving a strong phenomenological insight.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article's abstract clearly states that it will engage in a close reading of Stephen King's novel The Green Mile as an illustration of Magical Realism in the context of religious symbolism and illness. However, there is not a single direct quote from King's text nor analysis of the novel's language. The article goes into great depth reviewing scholarship on magical realism, illness, and religious imagery but neglects the promised analysis of the novel. Instead, the article relies on summary and allusions to events within the novel. What language choices used by King align with the theories on magical realism? King isn't even included in the works cited. 

If this article is to be revised, I suggest realigning the abstract with the actual article to clearly illustrate that this is a literature review on theories of magical realism rather than an in-depth analysis of King's novel. The theoretical framework occupies the bulk of this article and rather than that, I would advise greatly reducing that framework to allow for the promised close analysis of the text. Without it, this article reads as an interesting discussion of the theoretical framework. The author's work on this framework is admirable and the figures illustrating it are interesting but as they relate to the novel, they are too vague to offer meaningful insights. Figure 3 for example makes references to plot elements of the novel and places them within the framework but without the detailed analysis promised in the abstract, these figures do not ultimately add to a deeper understanding of King's use of the epistemic functions to engage in cultural critique. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your careful reading of the manuscript and your constructive and insightful comments. We sincerely appreciate your detailed feedback, in particular with regard to the balance between the theoretical framework and the textual analysis. Your suggestions have been extremely helpful in making this article more clear, focused and literary-critical.

Below, we respond to each of your points in detail.

1. Lack of direct quotes and analysis of King’s language

Reviewer comment: The article promises a close reading but does not include direct quotations or an analysis of the novel’s language.

Response:
Thank you for this important observation. We completely agree that a close reading of a novel must be shown through direct textual evidence. In the revised manuscript, we have greatly enhanced the analysis section by including several direct quotations from Stephen King's The Green Mile and performing a detailed stylistic analysis of diction, syntax, narrative voice and descriptive register. For example, the revised analysis now looks at specific passages, such as Coffey's speech ("I am tired, boss. Dog-tired") and the execution scenes to demonstrate how the matter-of-fact prose style creates magical realist effects at the level of language rather than just at the level of plot. This revision is a direct response to the reviewer's concern about a lack of textual engagement.

2. Overreliance on theory and insufficient focus on the novel

Reviewer comment: The article reads more like a theoretical discussion than an in-depth analysis of King’s novel.

Response:
We sincerely thank this useful critique. In response, we have rebalanced the structure of the manuscript. The theoretical framework has been carefully condensed and repositioned as a preparatory lens rather than as the central focus of the article. Simultaneously, the analysis section has been expanded to foreground a close reading of the novel's prose, narrative tone and stylistic mechanisms. This revision makes sure that the theory supports the literary analysis and does not overshadow it.

3. Suggestion to realign the abstract with the actual content

Reviewer comment: The abstract should reflect whether the article is primarily a literature review or a close reading.

Response:
Thank you for this useful suggestion. We have changed the abstract to make it clear that the study is based on a close stylistic reading of King's prose and employs theoretical frameworks as interpretive tools. The revised abstract now explicitly emphasizes diction, narrative voice and descriptive language as the main focus of analysis, so that there is full alignment between the abstract and the actual content of this article.

4. Absence of King in the works cited

Reviewer comment: King was not included in the works cited.

Response:
We appreciate this important correction: The revised manuscript now explicitly covers Stephen King's The Green Mile (1996) in the reference list and also cites the novel throughout the analysis section, when discussing specific passages and stylistic features of the text.

5. Figures and their perceived vagueness in relation to the text

Reviewer comment: The figures are interesting but too vague without a detailed textual analysis.

Response:
Thank you for this thought-provoking observation. In the revised version, we made it clearer that the figures are intended as heuristic syntheses to complement, not replace, textual analysis. Additionally, we worked to make the link between the figures and particular passages from the novel by anchoring each conceptual diagram in close readings of King's prose. This ensures that the visual frameworks function as analytical summaries rather than abstract generalizations rather than abstract generalizations.

6. Need to demonstrate how King’s language aligns with magical realism theory

Reviewer comment: The article must show what specific language choices support the classification of the text as magical realism.

Response:
We are very grateful for this important methodological point. The revised manuscript now explicitly analyses the following:

• The matter-of-fact narrative tone used to describe supernatural events
• Paratactic sentence structures and tonal flatness
• The documentary register applied equally to realistic and impossible events
• The narrator’s colloquial but authoritative voice

These linguistic features are now directly related to important concepts in magical realism theory, especially defocalization and ontological ambiguity, thus offering a better justification for the literary-critical classification.

Final Note

We sincerely thank the reviewer for pointing out the need for a better textual engagement and a structural balance. These comments greatly enhanced the manuscript by suggesting a better alignment between the abstract, theoretical framework and close reading of King's prose. The revised version puts the language of the novel at the center of the analysis and keeps the theoretical depth that supports the interpretation.

We are thankful for your constructive and rigorous feedback.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The edits that have been made to this paper have, in my view, very significantly improved the piece as a whole: the arguments throughout now seem much more fully realised than before because the understanding of the magical realist mode, and the identification of it in action, is solid.  The action of the mode is explored with great clarity and precision, and I can see that a lot of work has gone on to close read, make arguments for its existence in the sample text and discuss the greater philosophical implications of the use of MR.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading this revised piece and think it is a serious addition to scholarly work on the mode.  

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your generous and encouraging comments. I truly appreciate the time and care you have given to reading the revised manuscript.

It is very rewarding to know that the revisions have improved the clarity of the arguments and the discussion of magical realism. Your earlier feedback helped me rethink several parts of the paper, especially the way the mode is explained and demonstrated in the text.

I am especially glad that you found the close reading and the overall argument clearer and more fully developed. Your comments were very helpful in guiding these improvements.

Thank you again for your support and thoughtful evaluation.