Dolores Claiborne

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1992

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Foreword-Page 81

Pages 81-159

Pages 159-215

Pages 215-283

Pages 283-342

Pages 342-372

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

The Solar Eclipse

The murder of Joe St. George takes place during the solar eclipse, which provides Dolores with a cover for her violent deed. Additionally, the eclipse functions as a link between Dolores and Jessie (the protagonist of a later Stephen King novel, Gerald’s Game, which takes place during the same solar eclipse) who are united by not only the path of totality but also by their shared traumatic experiences. Eclipses are frequently viewed as powerful symbols of transformation, and harbingers of danger. Early myths about eclipses often involved beasts swallowing the sun and threatening the lives of humans. These myths foreground the eclipse as simultaneously dangerous and redeeming. While most of Dolores Claiborne’s plot is grounded and realistic, the eclipse functions as a supernatural element that highlights the horror of Dolores’s and Jessie’s experiences.

For the people of Little Tall Island, the eclipse is a time of celebration. Vera Donovan hires a boat and hosts a party for eclipse viewers; the hotel holds festivities on the roof for tourists and locals. Despite these joyous events, King notes in the foreword that the eclipse caused chaos in the land as birds roosted in confusion and nocturnal animals awakened.

The darkness of the eclipse and the celebrations of the locals allow Dolores to murder her husband without being seen. In Western culture, the moon is usually associated with the feminine and the sun with the masculine. Thus, a solar eclipse symbolizes the feminine overpowering the masculine. Dolores’s murder of Joe shows a woman gaining power over a man and blotting out his life force just as the moon moves in front of the sun. King uses the eclipse itself to symbolize Dolores’s decision to take back control of her life by murdering her husband.

King uses the psychic link between Dolores and Jessie created by the solar eclipse as connective narrative tissue between Dolores Claiborne and Gerald’s Game. The two characters are linked by trauma perpetuated by male family members. The eclipse allows them to form a bond, however brief, that will haunt Dolores. The solidarity between the two, discovered in the midst of traumatic moments of abuse and violence, is echoed later in both books as each protagonist “emerge[s] from the darkness” (xvii).

The Well

In Dolores Claiborne, the well symbolizes death—both Joe’s physical demise, and the end of his dysfunctional marriage to Dolores. Dolores first contemplates the well after she tells Vera about Joe’s abuse of Selena and his theft of her savings. Old and dried up, the well symbolizes the state of Vera’s marriage. Covered by rotting boards and scrub blackberries, the well is hidden from view in the same way Dolores believes the truth of her marriage is obscured from her neighbors who think “Joe was an alcoholic who used to beat [her]—and probably the kids, too—when he was drunk” (91) because it was easier for them to accept. They didn’t know Joe beat Dolores primarily when he was sober or about his sexual abuse of Selena, which remained secret. Additionally, when Joe tries to climb out of the well and grabs for her, Dolores fears that he will pull her into the well and that they will “go tumbling down together, and there [they’ll] stay, prob’ly wrapped in each other’s arms” (265). In this way, Dolores equates the well with both Joe’s death and the life-threatening nature of their marriage if she is unable to escape Joe’s embrace.

Dolores intends for Joe’s murder to be a passive one, easily explained to authorities as an accident—he’ll simply step on the rotted boards covering the well and die without her active assistance. His ability to climb the walls of the well, despite his extensive injuries adds to the visceral horror of the climax, the sensory details of which—the sound of his fall into the well, his cries, and the cracking of his jaw—come back to haunt Dolores when Vera dies. Vera’s screams as she tries to escape the dust bunnies sound “like Joe had come back” (316). Likewise, Vera’s fall down the stairs creates a thud that reminds Dolores of Joe’s fall into the well.

In the novel’s resolution, King employs Biblical allusion, turning the well into a site of righteous vengeance. As Dolores reminds herself when confronted with Vera’s death: “I have digged a pit for mine enemies, and am fallen into it myself” (364). This reference to Psalm 57 and Dolores’s subsequent musings reveal her belief that someday her murder will be discovered, and she will, like Joe and Vera, pay the price for her crime.

The Dust Bunnies

Dust bunnies are the central dread of the elderly Vera Donovan and symbolize her fears of her deceased husband as well as the guilt that Vera carries for his death. Dolores relates that as Vera grew older, she became scared “to death over those friggin dust bunnies” and would scream and cry whenever she saw them (74). Dolores takes this fear seriously and spends time trying to sweep up the dust and comforting Vera when she cries. Dolores, therefore, becomes a buffer between Vera and her guilt, protecting Vera from her horror and fear. In the end, Vera reveals that she sees her dead husband in the dust bunnies, and Dolores admits that they “felt like dusty ghosts” (317). Though innocuous in and of themselves, the dust bunnies come to represent the horror of Vera’s trauma and fears, pointing to King’s central premise in Dolores Claiborne—everyday reality can be just as terrifying as the supernatural. Vera’s fears ultimately lead to her death, suggesting that she was drawn to death by her guilt and the specter of her husband.