Life’s a bitch
I do give a shit about one thing, though, and that’s why I came down here on my own hook. I didn’t kill that bitch Vera Donovan, and no matter what you think now, I intend to make you believe that.
Stephen King, Dolores Claiborne
TRIGGER WARNING – Child Sexual Exploitation
The dedication to Dolores Claiborne is made out to Ruth Pillsbury King, Stephen’s mother who sadly passed away from cancer not long before Carrie was published. As noted in other essays, she lived long enough to see King begin his career, but not enough to see him truly become the success he would become. In some ways, he has written about his grief for her loss before – Roadwork in particular is a raw exploration of grief written by a man who had only just lost his mother. But Dolores Claiborne stands as tribute to the woman who, in effect, single-handedly raised Stephen and his brother, David King.
Though it is somewhat jumping the gun a little, much of what King recalls of his childhood in his memoir On Writing mirrors that of Dolores. Single mother, with a father who was absent for the Kings, living in Maine and doing everything she can to provide and ensure a brighter future for her family. It can be difficult, and I think also frankly invasive, to speculate on how similar Dolores and Ruth are. Though there are parallels between the two, and I think King draws much of the humanity he instills within Dolores from his experience and love of his mother, only Stephen himself can answer that particular thought. But regardless, King writes Dolores with an honest humanity inspired by his mother, but also I think the book allows him to come to terms with the childhood he had. King cannot recall much of his childhood – how much is just childhood fog lost to memory, or trauma, again, would be just unfair speculation – but King has been in a reflective mood in his writing. Writers will always cannibalise their own lives for material, but going back to The Dark Half it appears King is using his writing to process different aspects of his life: addiction, recovery, regret. Here, and to a lesser extent Gerald’s Game as well, it’s processing the trauma of just being a child.
These two books are linked closely in that they lead with similar themes, as well as the literal link which I’ll get to later. That both books discuss the inherent evil of child abuse frankly, openly and with considerable sympathy to the victims, should be applauded. King doesn’t shy away from talking about it, but never once does he cheapen it. Gerald’s Game‘s Space Cowboy and the dust bunnies present in this book are as supernatural as it gets, and mostly act in the peripheries of the stories they inhabit. They are not the focus. King is interested here, and stretching his abilities as writer too, in writing deliberately from a woman’s perspective. King’s fears in his books have been, to be glib, evil cars and bad ghosts. The fears he is examining here are very much how Margaret Atwood said: ‘Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.‘
This may be why, despite Dolores Claiborne clearly being a magnificent piece of work, it is it not as highly regarded/known. It’s easy to sell a killer clown, but the Evil That Men Do, especially from the man who wrote the book on a Killer Clown, isn’t as attractive a proposition. That its closest antecedent to this is the deeply unpopular Roadwork (which I also love) I don’t think is a coincidence. But that King is pushing himself as a writer, and succeeding too, is worthy of your time. The form, as an unbroken monologue written in a light Maine vernacular, may also be off-putting for some. But it would be hard to imagine King writing this story any other way, so linked is it intrinsically with the life and experience of Dolores and Maine.
The only other story that I think truly precedes Dolores Claiborne is the final story from Skeleton Crew, another under appreciated gem, The Reach. So linked are they in my head, I had to check to make sure they weren’t set on the same island. As much as this book is a fictional exploration of King’s mother, it is also an exploration of King’s experiences as someone who lives and breathes Maine life. The love he clearly expresses for his home state is wrapped up in the feelings he has for his mother who protected him throughout his childhood. It wasn’t until he was older that he fully realised all the sacrifices she had made for him, and though King cannot repay it to her now (which is not to say he was a neglectful child – rather, he couldn’t care for her when he was dirt poor in the early 70s), King repays it by supporting and keeping Maine alive with his extensive charity work.
Returning to the theme of female empowerment, King deliberately has linked this book with his previous effort, Gerald’s Game. In fact, the story goes that King had planned to write this novel in the autumn, wanting a summer break, only to come up with the concept of Gerald’s Game as well, write that, and then this. It is also well-known that these originally were going to part of one large project before being split called The Path of the Eclipse. Knowing that, it is important to finally discuss how these two novels are linked and the symbolic importance of the eclipse itself.
Both stories reach a peak in the 1963 eclipse, a real event. In Gerald’s Game, it is the moment Jessie realises how she has been manipulated by her father to satisfy his needs, and begins to find the strength to fight against it. It is the memory of this that later compels here to free herself from Gerald, the Space Cowboy and by extension male influence. In Dolores Claiborne, it is the moment that Dolores is able to get rid of her abusive husband by orchestrating a fall down the dry well (most people in horror die when a phallic symbol, usually a knife, stabs them – this is the metaphorical opposite!). I discussed a similar idea in my essay on The Sun Dog, echoing ideas that King had discussed in great depth in Danse Macabre. The Sun shines a light on everything, penetrating all, represents a masculine, Apollonian order. But the Moon’s arrival in the form of the eclipse disrupts this, allowing for the Dionysian disorder to interrupt the male with the female. In both books, it represents the moment that the woman character is able to disrupt and gain power over the masculine. In that moment, Jessie and Dolores are able to find strength in each other to fight back against the male powers that hold them back. It may not be forever, and it may come back to haunt them – but in that eclipse, they are able to find the strength to beat back the men, even if only for the length of time it takes for the moon to pass in front of the sun.
Or, as Vera, Dolores’ companion throughout life, so often puts it, ‘Sometimes you have to be a high-riding bitch to survive… Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto.‘ Vera has her own experiences similar to Dolores’, and despite the class divide between them are ultimately able to bond, such as they may be able to at all, in the fact that compromise has gotten them nothing but compromised lives. It’s the kind of relationship that definitely invites a queer reading at least. Being a bitch gets them what is needed. For Vera, she loses it all, but Dolores at least has a shot at redemption. The novel’s close implies less that the police couldn’t prosecute Dolores after her extensive confession (though her drinking alcohol, even if only a single glass, would surely invalidate it anyway?) but rather letting her go in recognising that all Dolores was trying to do was live her life supporting her family, just as Ruth King had done for Stephen and David.
Ultimately, that is what Dolores Claiborne is about. It is a magnificent book, showing that King does have that ability within him to write strong female characters with complex interior lives, histories and emotions. In doing so, I think he has also given himself a better understanding of the women around him, and a greater appreciation for one of the most important women in his life: Ruth Pillsbury King.
Observations and Connections
King wisely keeps the references, save the central imagery discussed above, to a minimum. The Infamous Shawshank is mentioned a couple of times from Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, and Derry of It gets a fleeting mention in the close of the book.
UP NEXT: Get a good night’s rest, as we head out to visit King’s Nightmares & Dreamscapes.
Deeper Thoughts for the Horror Inclined 