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

Themes

Violence against Women

In Dolores Claiborne, Stephen King presents the individual struggles of Dolores and Selena as part of a much larger societal pattern of sexual and physical abuse against women. The fact that these women survive, overcome, and battle against their abuser, showing not only that King uses his works to address contemporary issues but also to show the limited options for women experiencing domestic violence within a patriarchal society.

As Dolores Claiborne is written as a first-person narrative, the voice of a woman who experienced and fought against domestic abuse is heard, imbuing the central female character with a degree of agency. Dolores’s abuse at the hands of her husband begins the second night of her marriage when a man at a restaurant ogles Dolores. Rather than confront the man, Dolores says Joe “grabbed [her], and turned [her] over his knee, and paddled [her] with his shoe” (87). Initially, Dolores believes his actions are “a kind of love-play,” and accepts Joe’s frequent beatings as a normal part of married life (87). She even justifies his behavior by looking back to her own childhood when she observed her father hit her mother. Eventually, however, Dolores retaliates, first smashing a pitcher against Joe’s head and later killing him. Over the course of her retelling, Dolores moves from a place of a passive acceptance of her abuse to active rebellion against it.

Joe’s abuse of Dolores includes not only physical abuse, but also emotional and psychological trauma as well, indicating that domestic abuse presents in a variety of forms. In addition to hitting her, Joe also constantly belittles his wife, calling her derogatory names and criticizing her appearance. He also takes the money that Dolores saved for their children’s education, forcing Dolores to be economically dependent on him, despite her years of hard work. Joe’s white, male privilege in their closed community allows him to exert control over Dolores and his children. The community, for instance, knows that “Joe [is] an alcoholic who [beats]” Dolores, but no one acts on her behalf (91). Her isolation and the inability or refusal of her neighbors to protect or understand her and her daughter leads, in part, to Dolores’s decision to kill Joe.

Through Dolores’s observations of Selena, King details common signals exhibited by survivors of sexual abuse. After Joe begins abusing her, Selena changes, staying late at school, shutting herself off from her friends and family, and growing silent—a change from her usual talkative nature. While Dolores attempts to protect Selena from her father’s abuse, the impact of her trauma stays with Selena throughout her adult life. As Dolores notes, Selena, at 44 has never married, is “too thin […] and [Dolores] think[s] she drinks” (309). Her early trauma, the novel suggests, has fallout far beyond the end of her actual abuse exacerbated by the development of unhealthy coping habits.

By representing these different types of Violence against Women—sexual, physical, economic, emotional and psychological—King exposes the impacts such abuse has on families. Joe’s abuse may stem from his sense that he lacks power and control as a lower-class man who attempts to reclaim both power and control by dominating and abusing the women in his family, reflecting a common psychological profile of many abusers.

Closed Communities

Set in the small resort town of Little Tall Island, Dolores Claiborne explores how isolated, self-contained societies operate and the tendency of close-knit communities to be simultaneously hyper-aware and self-protective—for example, recognizing signs of abuse, but refusing to intervene. The close-knit nature of the town is set up from the start of the novel as Dolores reveals her intimate knowledge of the police officers interviewing her, one of whom she observed pick his nose at church when he was a boy. Yet, as Dolores’s story unfolds, readers understand that despite the nearness of her neighbors and knowledge of the town, she has been isolated and unable to gain support from her community.

The abuse Dolores suffers is normalized by Tall Island’s culture of voyeurism and inaction. Her status as a lower-income working woman further highlights the resource disparity she experiences based on both gender and class. Finding herself pregnant at 19, Dolores marries her high school boyfriend, Joe St. George, and begins work as a maid and housekeeper, immediately suffering abuse at the hands of her new husband. The community—highly observant of the lives and actions of their neighbors—watches Dolores, recognizing that she is abused. However, rather than interceding on her behalf, they normalize it, using it as fodder for gleeful gossip. For instance, when a badly bruised Dolores encounters another local woman, her neighbor feigns sympathy. Dolores, however, sees through her tone, noting that “only a woman who’s just seen something that makes her happier’n a pig in shit can drip” with sympathy in such a way (106). Likewise, Joe and his friends swap stories of “home correction,” detailing how they keep their wives in line through physical violence. Aware of her community’s understanding of her situation, Dolores muses that many of her neighbors “can look right at a thing and draw a completely wrong conclusion” (109), suggesting that they make assumptions based on what makes them feel better rather than on what’s right.

While the citizens of Little Tall Island create their own narrative about Dolores and Joe, the setting of the novel also mirrors the isolation Dolores experiences. As the narrative is written in first-person, the lack of other voices highlights Dolores’s separation from her community, despite their private gossip about her family life. The townspeople (save Vera, another outsider) never try to help Dolores, and as a result, her friendships remain limited. Indeed, rather than seeking the truth, the citizens of the town spread rumors, pass judgments, and even threaten Dolores after the death of Vera.

King ends the novel by switching from Dolores’s own narration, and giving the final word to a gossip column in the town newspaper suggesting that while the trauma of the story forever altered the lives of Dolores and Selena, life in the town has continued just as it always has. The author of Notes from Little Tall, “Nosy Nettie,” reports on the daily lives of locals with a gossipy tone. Dolores’s reunion with her estranged daughter gets only a brief mention alongside speculation of how people will spend their Beano prize winnings and the relationships between local brothers. In short, the community scrutinizes the behavior of its members and judges their actions for its own entertainment, despite not truly knowing their inner lives.

Revenge Tragedy

Dolores Claiborne includes several of traditional elements of a classic revenge tragedy—a murder, a clear villain, ghostly visions of the murdered victim, and a violent plot. Most revenge tragedies feature a central character suffering grievous injury and taking matters into their own hands, unable to gain justice through traditional, legal means. The protagonist typically suffers from psychological duress and even poor physical health following the attainment of their revenge. Many of the most famous revenge tragedies—Shakespeare’s Hamlet, for example—feature the inclusion of ghosts, bloody deeds, and insanity. While King’s Dolores Claiborne is written in the 20th century, the novel shares these basic elements with the revenge tragedy genre that first came to prominence in the early modern period.

As an isolated, lower-class woman, Dolores lacks the means to gain freedom from her abusive husband and protect her children from his sexual and emotional violence. Because she lives in a closed community where domestic abuse is normalized and used as fodder for gossip, Dolores’s situation is not deemed worthy of intervention. When she tries to escape from her marriage and remove her children from Joe’s house, she learns that Joe has taken the money out of their joint account as he has more economic power as the “head of the household.” Dolores has no faith that she will be helped or believed if she tells the authorities about Selena’s abuse. Similarly, instead of turning to the school counselor for guidance, Selena believes that Joe’s abuse “wasn’t school business” (139). Both Dolores and Selena feel they have no access to public justice and thus, Dolores believes she has no choice but to take matters into her own hands.

While Dolores Claiborne does not include actual ghostly visions typical of most revenge tragedies, the supernatural anxieties of Vera Donovan and Dolores’s frequent invasive memories of Joe’s death are reminiscent of the genre. Vera, who murdered her own husband and who suffered the related deaths of her two children, fears dust bunnies and wires, believing them to be possessed by her murdered husband who “has been after [her] all these years” (321). Likewise, Dolores continually hears noises that remind her of Joe’s death and she even sees “his dusty, grinning face peekin out at me from under [Vera’s] wheelchair” when Vera falls down the stairs (320).

In keeping with traditional revenge tragedies in which the protagonist must suffer for taking revenge into their own hands, both Vera and Dolores suffer emotional and psychological fall out as a result of their murderous actions. The loss of their children—Vera’s to a car wreck—and Dolores’s daughter Selena to estrangement—is the price they pay for ridding themselves of their husbands. Vera also experiences delusions and the loss of her full mental capacities, which could stem from the guilt she’s experienced.

Similarly, Joe’s bloody and violent death at Dolores’s hands follows the classic trope of a revenge tragedy. Realistic and lengthy, the segment depicting Joe’s murder involves visceral descriptions of his bodily injuries: “[T]here was blood all over his chin and neck and the front of his shirt. When he opened his mouth n screamed my name, more blood came pourin out” (257). Thus, King recreates a traditional, dramatic genre that explores personal vengeance, but modernizes and contextualizes it by highlighting one woman’s struggle for justice in a society that failed to protect her or uphold her rights.