61 pages • 2 hours read
Stephen KingUnder the Dome
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Currency: Food, Fuel, and Information
After the townspeople of Chester’s Mill realize that they are totally cut off from the outside world, the kinds of currency available to them become limited and specialized. Money no longer has much meaning, for example, but food, propane, and information become vitally important. Big Jim Rennie understands this well, and it drives his decisions to cease alcohol sales, close the grocery stores, and shut down his methamphetamine operation: In the first two cases, he can leverage his power by doling out alcohol and food rations to those he deems sufficiently loyal; controlling the food supply specifically will garner him power over the entire populace. He also uses the closing of Food City as an opportunity to incite a riot, striking more fear into the hearts of The Mill’s residents and, thus, creating a crowd receptive to his tyrannical brand of leadership. He notes that “the fear he sees on most faces may not be such a bad thing” (438), as it allows him to assuage their fears in his role as leader. People value food, and with Rennie in charge of that resource, people inevitably value him.
Shuttering his drug operation means that he can retrieve the propane tanks to control the power supply to the rest of the town, as well. Barbie recognizes the value of the propane supply almost immediately: “He realized that propane and storage batteries, even more than food, had become the new gold standard in Chester’s Mill” (153). Fuel to power electricity—lights, electronic devices (charging phones, for example), the hospital, and so on—has become one of the most powerful currencies in town. Without fuel, The Mill loses its ability to care for its residents and, more importantly, to communicate with the outside world.
Thus, information is a currency that also comes at a premium. The military has blocked incoming and outgoing calls from Chester’s Mill; even the service within the Dome is spotty. Colonel Cox becomes one of the few agents from the outside world with whom The Mill’s victims can communicate. Barbie convinces Cox not to shut down internet service, as he did the phone service, but Cox dangles the possibility as a threat to control the narrative about the situation. However, Cox has a formidable foil in that arena: Julia Shumway. Her journalistic instincts kick in during the crisis, and she wields the power of the press without apology. She asks Cox—who can only reach Barbie through her phone—“When is the press going to be allowed at the Dome? Because the people of America deserve more than the government’s spin on this, don’t you think?” (406). She knows that the truth is her ally, that it can, perhaps quite literally, set the townspeople free. Cox picks up on her cues later, when he proposes the press conference at Visitors Day, which will pressure Rennie into answering questions and maybe nudge him out of leadership. Later, even young Joe McClatchey will suggest that their group take over the WCIK radio station in order to broadcast the facts on the ground. He realizes, as do the others, that relevant and truthful information might indeed be their most powerful currency of all.
The Enclosed Ecosystem
The unseasonably warm weather and stifling conditions under the Dome symbolize several points: First, they underscore the claustrophobic nature of life under the Dome, where no breeze ruffles the leaves, and no air gets circulated. Second, the stagnant and unnatural weather patterns mirror the static and distorted quality of those in charge, like Big Jim Rennie, under the Dome. Finally, while the author does not make this comparison explicit, the overheated weather under the Dome can be read as a metaphor for the encroaching threat of climate change—and human fallibility and impotence in the face of such change. Barbie and Julia discuss the state of the weather just a couple of days into the crisis, but Barbie quickly moves on to what he sees as more pressing concerns: “But what good did it do to speculate about the current air quality in Chester’s Mill, when there was nothing they could do about it?” (332). Ironically, it will be the air quality that leads to multiple casualties, in the end.
The material pollution that collects on the inside of the Dome also represents the moral corruption that plagues the population under the Dome. The physical ecosystem echoes the rapidly deteriorating ethical ecosystem in The Mill, where democracy lies as dormant as the stifling air. Even the children notice the worsening conditions; when Linda’s daughter wants to pick flowers, she complains that they are “dying […] All brown and yucky at the edges” (591). So too are the residents under the Dome slowly expiring, devoid of fresh air and subject to the unethical whims of a powerful few. Looking at the outside world through the Dome becomes an increasingly fraught exercise: The meteor shower turns an ominous dark pink; the horizon “became a poison yellow” (731); and the explosion turns the enclosed ecosystem instantly deadly. When Reverend Libby proffers the biblical verse about seeing through a glass darkly (1066), as the Dome is rising, she recognizes that the portents uttered under the Dome have come to pass: It is the end of the world as the characters know it, but perhaps now they can see clearly again. The smudged view from under the Dome—along with the polluted and corrupt nature of the town under the Dome—is now finally cleansed.
Addiction
Another motif that runs through the novel is that of addiction: Third Selectman Andrea Grinnell is addicted to painkillers; the Chef (and later Andy Sanders) is addicted to the methamphetamine he cooks; Sloppy Sam Verdreaux, along with Georgia Roux’s and Norrie Calvert’s respective mothers, are addicted to alcohol; Big Jim Rennie is addicted to power. The pattern of addiction serves to undercut the sentimental or nostalgic feelings that portrayals of small towns often take on, especially in American popular culture. Dependency also often indicates compromised thinking: Andrea, even in her position as part of town government, cannot stand up to Andy and Rennie because she relies on them for her drug supply; the Chef suffers delusions of apocalyptic grandeur due, at least in part, to his drug use; Rennie nurses his own fantasies of totalitarian control, nurtured by evangelical thinking, because his mind is clouded by his unfettered desire for power.
Andrea makes the comparison between Rennie’s influence and the town’s body politic explicit: “Tell me, do you think a town is like a body?” she asks Julia, who answers in the affirmative, and then adds, “And can it say it hurts so the brain can take the drugs it craves? […] And right now, Big Jim Rennie is the town’s brain, isn’t he?” (822). She suggests that, much like she has been manufacturing her back pain in order to get the OxyContin, the town is at the mercy of the cravings of Big Jim’s brain—for power and control. Later, when she hatches her ill-fated plan to blackmail Rennie into resigning, she thinks again, “A town was like a body, but it had one advantage over the human one; if a town had a bad brain, a transplant could be effected” (852-53). This serves both to exonerate the town—they are under the sway of a “bad brain”—and to implicate it, in caving into the cravings of a leader who does not have its best interests in mind.
The Dome
The Dome itself becomes an increasingly ominous symbol of all that Chester’s Mill has lost: its freedom, its small-town neighborliness, its ethical center. The Dome materialize a cultural psychology of separation and the pitting of different factions against one another. Whether the ultimate outcome would have been changed if the mantra of “we all support the team” had won out over “us versus them” is unclear—the Chef’s drug-addled, apocalyptic intentions might have manifested without the assistance of the Dome—but King indicates that a mentality of mutual support could have saved consciences and spared some lives.
The Dome merely amplifies the divisions that already exist, though Rennie definitely plays his part in furthering such divides. He enlists a police force that is more akin to a militia group, enforcing rules of their own choosing and generally eschewing moral consideration. As his son, Junior, thinks—after having gotten away with murder—“Under the Dome, all sorts of things might be possible” (541). This engenders a clash between Rennie’s crew and their (lack of) values and Barbie’s associates, who wish to perpetuate civic order and decency. Rusty Everett, as a local, is especially concerned about the devolving situation in The Mill: “Us and them, Rusty thought again. That’s what this conversation is going to be about. What it’s already about. Our secrets. Their power. Our plans. Their agenda” (663). Later, Rusty proposes that they “make a list of people who may believe Barbie’s innocent of the murders” (691)—ironically, this mirrors the list that Rennie wants Barbie to make, naming Rennie’s potential detractors. Us versus Them prevents collaboration and trust, on both sides, and lists become another way, like the Dome, to draw boundaries.
However, the division between two sides takes on new meaning as the alien generator and the “leatherheads” are discovered: “‘Did you see them?’ Rusty asked. Julia dropped her hands and looked at him with something like wonder. ‘Yes. I did, we all did. Them. Horrible’” (891). The dynamic shifts, as the characters begin to focus on the Dome itself rather than only on the effects under the Dome. Rennie’s rule begins to pale in comparison to the absolute power that the aliens have over The Mill’s residents. The alien experiment to which the humans are subjected continues unabated, and the event that Colonel Cox calls Visitors Day becomes a double entendre. Those who know about the alien generator feel uneasy: Joe says to Barbie, “This feels bad, Mr. Barbara. All these people together. This feels awful […] They’re watching. The leatherheads. I can feel them” (961). Joe’s feelings are prescient, as Visitors Day is interrupted by an explosion that will decimate the town and its population—though the explosion is detonated by humans, not by the aliens who watch. “They” have allowed the humans to destroy themselves, though one of Them ultimately has mercy on the last few survivors. Joe again captures the sentiment of how this “us versus them” mentality has impacted the town: “Chester’s Mill has been a town since 1803—we learned that in school. Over two hundred years. And a week to wipe it off the face of the earth” (1032). Through the combination of human hubris and alien intervention, The Mill does not stand a chance. As Julia puts it, speaking of the aliens but implying the behavior of the humans, “I don’t think you can fight a crowd that’s bent on cruelty” (1069).
Related Titles
By Stephen King
