Under the Dome

Dale Barbara, known as “Barbie,” is an Iraq War veteran and a short-order cook at Sweetbriar Rose, the local café. He is an outsider in the town of Chester’s Mill, and he has no intention of staying—especially after the regrettable confrontation with Junior Rennie and his friends in the parking lot at Dipper’s bar. In fact, on the day the Dome comes down, Barbie is headed out of town, leaving most of his belongings behind. Not only is he an outsider, as he is not a long-term resident of The Mill, but he also self-consciously depicts himself as a wanderer, the consummate outsider: “Basically, I’m just a ramblin guy,” he says to himself. “‘A ramblin guy on his way to Big Sky.’ And hell, why not? Montana! Or Wyoming. […] Anyplace but here” (9). This attitude is fueled both by his wartime experience—he has witnessed and participated in acts that he finds abhorrent—and by the fight with Junior, son of the town’s most powerful selectman. In the first instance, Barbie is running from himself and his memories, and in the second, he is trying to leave trouble behind.

Of course, once the Dome descends, he cannot escape, and his outsider status leaves him vulnerable to the corrupt power of Big Jim Rennie and his henchmen.