Dolores Claiborne (1992) is a psychological thriller by the American novelist Stephen King. The novel, narrated from Dolores’s first-person point of view, tells the story of her work as a housekeeper for the wealthy Vera Donovan and Dolores’s eventual murder of her abusive husband. Unique among King’s work for its unconventional narrative style, including a lack of chapter designations and section breaks, the novel deals with themes of revenge, family, physical and sexual abuse, and the bonds between women.

This study guide references the 1993 paperback edition published by Signet Printing.

Content Warning: The source material features depictions of sexual and physical abuse, alcohol abuse, racism, incest, and violence.

Plot Summary

The novel is framed as a police interview of Dolores Claiborne, a 65-year-old widow suspected of killing her elderly rich employer, Vera Donovan. Dolores begins her story by recounting her relationship with Vera, detailing her difficulties working as a housekeeper for the woman, whom she classifies as a perfectionist who enjoyed playing power games with her staff. Dolores, struggling with an abusive husband and trying to provide for her young children, begins her employment with Vera as a young woman and eventually becomes Vera’s main housekeeper and “paid companion.”

Dolores relates that Vera “had three ways of bein a bitch” (32). First, her employer had high standards, requiring that her directions on ironing, welcome mats, and laundry be followed exactly. Second, Vera was often cruel and mean, deliberately soiling herself to anger Dolores. Third, Vera suffered from hallucinations, believing that dust bunnies and wires were coming to get her. Despite her difficulties with Vera, Dolores worked for her for years, developing sympathy for the lonely and embittered woman.

While Dolores explains she is innocent of Vera’s death, she admits to killing her husband, Joe St. George. Finding herself pregnant when barely an adult, Dolores married Joe and instantly regretted her decision as Joe began to beat her “the second night of their marriage” (85). At first, Dolores accepts his abuse as normal, in part because she had witnessed her own father hit her mother. After years of what Dolores calls “home correction,” she finally puts a stop to Joe’s physical violence by hitting him in the face with a cream pitcher and threatening him with a hatchet. However, the end of the altercation is witnessed by their eldest daughter, Selena, who begins to suspect her mother of cruelty.

Following Dolores’s confrontation with her husband, Joe begins drinking more heavily and the couple stops having sex. Joe also works to turn Selena against her mother and the relationship between the mother and daughter becomes strained. Dolores, however, loves her daughter and begins to notice differences in her behavior. Selena starts to stay late after school, withdraws from all of her family members, and dresses in baggy clothes. Worried, Dolores waits for Selena at the high school and confronts her. After a lengthy discussion, Selena admits that her father has been sexually abusing her.

Dolores, devastated by the knowledge of her husband’s molestation of Selena, first threatens to make Joe’s life hell if he touches Selena again. She decides to use her children’s saving accounts to escape. When she gets to the bank, though, Dolores learns that Joe has taken all of the money she had put aside for her children. Without the funds to leave Joe and set up a new life with her children, Dolores cannot escape.

After crying about Joe’s negative impact on her and her children’s lives, Dolores turns to Vera. In response, Vera implies that she killed her own husband and subtly suggests that Dolores murder Joe. Distraught but inspired, Dolores decides to kill her husband, selecting an old well on their property as the site for his death.

Nearly a year later as the town prepares for a total solar eclipse, Dolores decides to make her move, knowing that the community will be attending eclipse viewing parties and the island will be empty. After making sure that her children are visiting family or at camp, Dolores decides to put her plan into action. While Vera hosts a party on a ferry, Dolores waits with Joe at her house.

After buying Joe a bottle of scotch and making him lunch, Dolores feels a moment of doubt, but when the eclipse begins, she changes her mind. After envisioning a young girl being molested by her father, Dolores remembers Joe’s abuse of Selena and his theft of their children’s money. Claiming that she found the money he stole, Dolores provokes Joe and he tries to strangle her. Breaking free, Dolores runs for the well and watches as Joe crashes through the rotting boards and falls into its depths. Still alive but severely wounded, Joe alternately calls for help and curses Dolores. After returning to the house, Dolores sleeps for a time, but awakens to check on her husband. Despite his injuries, Joe has climbed out of the well and grabs at Dolores, who reaches for the nearest stone and bashes in his head. Joe finally dies.

Joe’s body is found a week later after Dolores reports his disappearance. Despite rumors and the coroner’s suspicions that Dolores had a hand in his death, Joe’s death is ruled an accident. Selena, however, suspects the truth, and the relationship between the mother and daughter cools. Dolores also relates that she is haunted by continual visions of Joe in the well and the sound of the rock hitting his jaw.

After her confession, Dolores finally tells her interrogators the circumstances of Vera’s death. Frightened by “dust bunnies,” which she believed would kill her, Vera stood up from her wheelchair and ran to the staircase, where she fell. Dolores finds her, alive and cognizant, but mortally injured. Vera begs Dolores to put her out of her misery and Dolores runs to get a rolling pin. Vera dies before Dolores can end her employer’s suffering. A mail carrier enters the house and observes the death scene with suspicion, leading to Dolores’s questioning and community-wide misgivings about Dolores’s role in Vera’s death.

Following Vera’s death, Dolores also receives a call from a lawyer who explains that Vera left her sizeable fortune to Dolores. Initially Dolores refuses the money, but after learning that Vera’s children had died years ago in a car crash, Dolores agrees to accept the inheritance. Dolores ends her statement to the police, explaining that her actions helped her children and that she doesn’t regret Joe’s murder.

The novel ends with excerpts from three newspaper articles. One reveals that Dolores was cleared of blame in Vera’s death. Another relates that Dolores anonymously donated her inheritance from Vera to an orphanage. The last discloses that Selena will be coming to Little Tall Island to visit her mother for Christmas after an absence of 20 years.