Dolores Claiborne

Dolores Claiborne, the central protagonist of Stephen King’s novel, is a 65-year-old widow who has worked for the wealthy Vera Donovan for over 40 years. She grew up on Little Tall Island, a small community in Maine and married Joe St. George when she was still a teenager. The couple had three children—Selena, Joe Junior, and Little Pete. In her early years, Dolores accepted Joe’s physical abuse, believing that “home correction” was socially acceptable and a part of married life. Later, however, Dolores takes control of her life and fights back, and in the end, she murders her husband to stop his abuse of her and her children. The only narrator of the novel, Dolores frequently uses jargon, swear words, and regional dialect. Structurally, her narrative, as told to the police, is not framed chronologically. Instead, Dolores explains, “I’m gonna start in the middle and just kinda work both ways” (24).

While Dolores’s account of her husband’s murder and her relationship with Vera Donovan reveal her arc—the development of her inner strength and resolve that moves her to take action against Joe, Dolores remains haunted by the killing of her husband.