Dolores Claiborne

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.