Dolores Claiborne

Dolores segues into her discussion of Joe’s mistreatment of her and their children, his murder, and its aftermath. Their marriage began when Dolores was 18 and Joe 19. Even at that point, Dolores admits it wasn’t a loving marriage. The first thing that attracted her to Joe was his forehead, which she used to admire in high school study-hall. The two began dating and Dolores soon found herself pregnant. Without options and wanting to leave her childhood home, Dolores agreed to marry Joe, telling him she loved him because “it only seemed polite” (84).

Shortly after their marriage, though, Joe begins to beat Dolores. Dolores initially accepts her abuse as ordinary treatment, recalling that her father “used his hands on [her] Mum from time to time,” and referring to a husband’s violence against his wife as “home correction” (87, 90). In addition to the abuse, Joe also drinks excessively, although Dolores contends he wasn’t addicted to alcohol and instead used his supposed “recoveries” to help him find employment and gain sympathy.

Dolores eventually retaliates against her abusive husband by hitting him on the side of the face with a cream-pitcher. She threatens him with a hatchet and Joe threatens to kill her. Dolores hands him the hatchet, telling him to “make the first one count so’s I don’t have to suffer” (98). Joe doesn’t follow through with his threat and Dolores states that was the last time he beat her.

Dolores’s moment of confrontation changes their relationship. In response to Dolores’s assertion of power, Joe becomes sexually impotent with his wife. Their daughter Selena, who witnessed Dolores’s violence against Joe with the cream-pitcher, turns against her mother, believing Dolores the abusive partner in the relationship. Soon, Dolores begins noticing changes in Selena.

Joe initially presents himself to Selena as a victim of Dolores’s abuse and anger, forming a bond with his daughter. Dolores notices a closeness develop between the two as well as a distance between her and Selena. As time progresses, though, Selena becomes increasingly withdrawn, changing from a lively and helpful teenager to a quiet and solitary girl who hides away in her room and avoids her family and friends. She also begins wearing “big baggy sweaters” and responding to questions with one-word answers.

Concerned for her daughter, Dolores at first suspects a boyfriend or drugs, but decides to confront Selena to learn the truth. Dolores rides the ferry to Selena’s high school where Selena admits that Joe has been molesting her, manipulating her sympathy for him to gain access to her affections and then her body. Fearing her mother’s anger and believing herself shameful, Selena had kept the story to herself.

Armed with her knowledge of Joe’s incestuous behavior, Dolores confronts her husband. After threatening to report him and send him to prison, Dolores feels confident that Joe will leave Selena alone. However, Dolores also begins to worry about her two other children. Her older son, Joe Junior, an excellent student and bookworm, is constantly harassed by his father and begins to hate him. The younger son, Little Pete, mimics and idolizes his father, leading Dolores to fear the boy “want[s] to grow up to be just like” Joe (159).