Dolores Claiborne

Dolores notes that she doesn’t sleep well the day before the murder, worried that rain will mar her plans. When she wakes, the day is merely cloudy, and Dolores spends her morning helping Vera with a brunch buffet for her eclipse guests. Although she has a headache, Dolores works throughout the morning, returning home after her job is complete. She tells the police that she can “remember everythin that happened” that day (215).

On her way home, Dolores buys a bottle of Johnnie Walker for Joe, hoping to make him easier to kill. Once home, Dolores presents Joe with the Scotch and a pair of eclipse-viewers, telling her husband she has a surprise for him later. She fixes a sandwich for Joe, thinking to herself: “Make it good, cause it’s the last thing he’s ever gonna eat” (225). The pair enjoy their food and share a kiss. For a moment, Dolores has second thoughts, but as soon as she touches Joe’s forehead, she remembers Joe’s abuse of Selena and poor treatment of their other sons and decides to go through with the murder.

When the eclipse begins Dolores suddenly sees a little girl holding a reflector box to watch the sun go dark in the sky. However, Dolores notices that the girl’s “Daddy’s hand was on her leg, way up high. Higher’ n it ought to’ve been, maybe” (232). The girl reminds Dolores of Joe’s abuse of Selena and as the world turns darker, Dolores realizes this is the time to kill him. Telling Joe she has a surprise, Dolores claims that she found out about Joe taking the children’s college money and convinced the bank teller to return it to her. Flabbergasted, Joe accuses Dolores of lying and finally lunges at her, grabbing her by the throat and nearly strangling her to death.

Afterward, Dolores tells Joe the money is at the back of the woodshed and begins to lead him through the yard as Joe shoves and hits her. Breaking free, Dolores runs through the blackberry bushes to the well and Joe follows after, stepping on the rotted wood and falling part-way into the well. Joe begs for help, but Dolores doesn’t move to help him, instead listening as “the board he was clawin his way along all of a sudden snapped under his weight and he dropped” (250).

Dolores again sees the same little girl, Jessie, who asks who she is, but before Dolores can respond, she hears Joe calling from the well. At first Dolores thinks she is imagining things, but she recognizes his voice. After grabbing a flashlight from the shed, Dolores takes a closer look. Joe, still alive, begs Dolores to help him, promising that he will leave Selena alone. The eclipse ends, but Dolores doesn’t assist her husband, who continues to alternately beg for help and curse his wife. After dozing off at the side of the well, Dolores wakes to find Joe climbing the well walls and grinning. Dolores waits until he falls and returns home to try and sleep.

Unable to sleep and imagining Joe stumbling to their house, Dolores returns to the well. Joe has made his way to the top of the well and grabs Dolores’s ankle. Fighting Joe off, Dolores grabs a stone and bashes it against Joe’s head; he falls into the well. He doesn’t move again, and Dolores finally believes he is dead. She sleeps, but dreams of Joe’s hand grabbing her and goes to check on him again. Convinced of his death, she returns to bed.

In the morning, Dolores begins to worry. She picks up the bottle of scotch whiskey, rehearses a story of Joe’s drunkenness, and returns to the well. Joe lays at the bottom of the well with bugs crawling on his face. Dolores throws the bottle down with him along with some of the rotten boards and picks up the pieces of cloth caught in the bushes when Joe chased her. A few hours later, Dolores calls a friend and reports Joe missing. Then, she calls Joe’s friends and tells them they had an argument and Joe left angry. In her call to Vera, Dolores explains that she’s “misplaced [her] husband,” to which Vera cryptically responds, “Maybe he’s had an accident” (282). Finally, Dolores phones the police chief to alert him of Joe’s disappearance.