Dolores Claiborne

After assessing the damage Joe continually causes his family, Dolores decides to withdraw her children’s college fund—around $3,000—and use it to leave Joe and get herself and her children to safety. At the bank, though, Dolores learns that despite her presentation of the passbooks that should allow her to withdraw the funds, Joe has emptied out the accounts months before and set up a separate account in only his name. Enraged, Dolores realizes how little power she has as a wife and mother. On her way home, Dolores determines that she will “get that money out of him again” (171). Beset with worries about her children, Dolores bides her time. She observes Joe continuing to ogle Selena, Joe Junior’s hatred for his father growing, and Little Pete learning racist and violent behaviors from his dad.

All the while, Dolores continues working for Vera Donovan. Vera, who had previously lived on the island only during the summer months, begins to stay year-round after the death of her husband. Dolores also notices that Vera’s two children never visit their mother. Although Vera is often cantankerous, the older woman perks up when she learns of an upcoming total eclipse, set to take place in the summer of 1963.

One day while working for Vera, Dolores breaks down and begins to cry over her inability to leave Joe. Confiding in Vera, Dolores tells her employer about Joe’s molestation of Selena, his theft of the passbook, and her thwarted attempt to flee with her children. Dolores also hints that she fears she will kill Joe if something doesn’t change. Vera subtly suggests that Dolores should murder Joe, and implies that she may have killed her own husband, telling Dolores that men frequently have accidents—“they fall downstairs, they slip in bathtubs, and sometimes their brakes fail and they run their BMWs into oak trees when they are hurrying home from their mistresses’ apartments” (191).

On her way home from Vera’s mansion, Dolores begins to seriously contemplate Joe’s murder. She remembers an old well on their property, abandoned and covered with rotting boards. After tying a handkerchief to the bush near the well to mark the spot, Dolores feels a sense of peace. Over the next months, Dolores notices that Joe is spending the children’s college savings on poker and gifts for himself. She bides her time and considers the well.

Meanwhile, Vera becomes fascinated by the coming eclipse and begins planning a viewing party on a chartered ferry. When she tells Dolores that between the ferry’s occupants and the people watching from the hotel roof, the town will be deserted during the eclipse, Dolores realizes that she found the perfect time to kill Joe. With Selena working at a summer camp, Dolores sends her boys to their aunt’s home for a visit, ensuring her children would be gone when she carries out her plan. Dolores also finds renewed courage after she stands up for one of Vera’s employees and Vera acquiesces to her demands to reinstate a housemaid.