All the main characters in this novel are female and the few male characters are primarily relegated to the background as supporting characters. All action in the story is taken by women or at their command; for example, Sue making Tommy take Carrie to the prom. This is an interesting reversal of the patriarchal structure of most literature in which male characters move the narrative forward and females are just background. Religion is shown to be a destructive patriarchal force that demeans and subjugates women by the insistence that they are "cursed", sinful and somehow less than man. Carrie's menstrual cycle and the simultaneous appearance of her telekinetic powers rather than being a curse or a punishment for sins is symbolic of her growing into her feminine power or possibly achieving the divine feminine. The destruction of the town and all who hurt, belittled and degraded her is the expression of the power of women to overthrow the patriarchy and establish a more fair and equitable society.
Dolores Claiborne
Dolores Claiborne (1995) .Bit*h. quote Vera to Dolores: .Sometimes, Dolores ... .
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The book is dedicated to King's mother: "For my mother, Ruth Pillsbury King", and Dolores Claiborne may be one of King's strongest characters. The book is not divided into chapters and the story is told entirely in the first person by Dolores as she gives a statement following the suicide of her friend and employer, Vera. During this statement she confirms the suspicion that she killed her abusive husband 30 years ago during the full solar eclipse of 1963. This book explores first-wave feminism and the struggles women faced to survive in a male-dominated society.
Dolores pregnant at 18 and told Joe she loved him because it was the "polite thing" to do. She married him because in the post-suffrage and pre-first-wave-feminism era she lived in it was the only socially acceptable thing to do. Dolores works as a housekeeper and performs all the domestic duties at home as well and accepts this as normal. Joe beats her, and she accepts the beatings as "home correction", something she has been told by her patriarchal society is what happens between a man and a woman.
Dolores puts an end to the beatings when Joe strikes her with a piece of firewood and knocks her to the floor. The being hit is not what finally makes her stand up to him; it is that her daughter finds her on the floor and Joe makes a joke of it saying your mother was tired of running her mouth. Laughing and the treating it as a joke in front of her child is what causes Dolores to realize this was not "normal". According to social theorists and feminists (Kelly 1988, Daly 1974) the key to ending oppression is to realize that it is oppression. Dolores fights back for the first time, striking Joe with a creamer and then handing him an ax, telling him to either kill her or never touch her again.
Joe stops beating Dolores but feels emasculated. For her to no longer fear him is an unbearable affront to his manhood and feeling of superiority. Joe turns to his daughter, Selena. He gets the sympathy and affection of his daughter by painting her mother as a mean, abusive shrew of a woman, who doesn't show him the love and respect, as a man, he deserves.
Dolores comes to the horrible realization that Joe has been molesting their daughter. It's 1963 and on the mainland feminism is beginning to achieve attention but no so much in this isolated island community. Dolores has dreams of her daughter going to college, getting an education and escaping the pattern of suppression that has been a woman's lot up to this point. Dolores has been saving money for this dream in a passbook account. Dolores goes to the bank to get her savings and escape with her children. The bank manager informs her there is no money; her husband withdrew it. Dolores rages at the bank manager, asking how could he take it without the passbook? The manager tells her Joe said he lost the book and as her husband was within his rights to withdraw it. Dolores, furious, says it was not his to take; why didn't you call me? She calls attention to the patriarchal double standard she is sure exists. She asks the bank manager if I had tried to take the money you would have called Joe, wouldn't you? The bank manager refuses to answer the question, tells her she is being hysterical and has her removed. This scene in the text is a perfect example of the inequality that women faced and the contempt, or at least lack of any protection from the law, that women faced in patriarchal society.
Dolores finds an unlikely ally in her employer, Vera Donovan. Vera is a wealthy widow who employs Dolores as a housekeeper. She is a difficult woman and hard on her staff, but when she sees the normally strong and stoic Dolores in tears, she takes an interest. Vera tells Dolores that she has few options in this "unbearably male world", there is little chance of getting a divorce or protection from the courts. "The court's view of an ongoing marriage as an intimate zone insulated from legal interferences offered a wife with no resources... to deal with a problematic relationship: she was either to endure or to seek a divorce" (Cott 163). In 1963 there were only two grounds for divorce and there was still a social stigma attached to a divorcee. Vera agrees Joe must be stopped from doing any more harm to Selena but suggests that sometimes "an accident can be a woman's best friend". Vera confesses that her husband's car accident while driving home from his mistress may not have been as accidental as it seemed.
When Dolores tells Vera that she isn't that kind of person, she couldn't possibly do away withJoe, Vera firmly responds "Dolores, sometimes you have to be a high-riding b*tch to survive. Sometimes, being a b*tch is all a woman has to hold on to." In "The b*tch Manifesto" (1969) Joreen writes that the term "b*tch" is usually used to refer to a deviant, a woman who lives outside of the expectations society has for her gender. Usually used as a derogatory and demeaning term, Vera has appropriated the term as one of strength and determination. If being a b*tch means resisting oppression, subjugation and demanding fair and equitable treatment, then embrace it.
Dolores gets Joe drunk and provokes him by telling him she knows about the money and what he has been doing to Selena. He doesn't deny it; in fact, he accuses his daughter of having wanted it. This tactic is one that is strongly embedded in a phallocentric society; in culture, the courts and in churches women are doubly victimized by the accusation and assumption that if they are beaten or sexually molested they must have in some way brought it upon themselves by failing to act within the expectations and limitations of their gender. Dolores risks her life by angering him enough to make him chase her. She takes advantage of the solar eclipse and leads him to the abandoned well. Unfortunately, he does not die instantly as she had hoped.
Dolores spends a nightmarish night next to the well, listening to her husband's pain, anger and increasingly vile threats of rape, murder and abuse should he get out. Dolores has a vision of a young girl being molested by her father during the eclipse and a vision of the girl hiding clothing under her bed that smell of "blood and oysters". The smell symbolizes blood and sex, and the act of hiding it is shame.
Bound by shared secrets, lonely and estranged from their children, Dolores and Vera come to rely more and more upon each other. Their friendship may best be described by feminist poet Adrienne Rich: "The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet" (Bressler, 163). Dolores is poor and working class while Vera is wealthy and well educated, but these class differences made little difference in a patriarchal society that marginalized and abused them both based on their gender. They both managed to free themselves from the control and abuse of a husband. The two women practice a kind of separatist feminism, living apart from the patriarchal society in Vera's mansion and having little to no contact with the outside world. Neither Dolores nor Vera marry again, neither willing to surrender control of their lives or finances. Vera does take her gardener as a lover, it is a safe way of satisfying her need for male companionship as her elevated social class and being his employer allows her to maintain a position of power. Dolores cares for Vera until her death. Vera takes her own life when she feels that she is losing control of her mind and body, which stresses how very important control is to a woman that has been subjugated by a patriarchal society most of her life.
Gerald's Game
The book is dedicated to King's wife Tabitha and her sisters: "This book is dedicated, with love and admiration, to six good women: Margaret Spruce Morehouse, Catherine Spruce Graves, Stephanie Spruce Leonard, Anne Spruce Labree, Tabitha Spruce King, and Marcella Spruce." This text is a companion piece to Dolores Claiborne. Dolores Claiborne addressed the era of first-wave feminism and Gerald's Game addresses second-wave feminism and the repercussions of feminist theory up to the current time. These two women, Dolores and Jesse, are connected by the solar eclipse of 1963, events that are happening in 1993, visions, dreams, suppression by the patriarchal society, the expectations of women, sexual abuse and finding the means to personal acceptance and survival.
During an afternoon trip to their cabin at the lake Jesse agrees to play a bondage game with her husband Gerald. After being handcuffed to the headboard Jesse changes her mind, tired of being objectified. Gerald at first assumes she is play acting but even when he realizes she means it he does not release her. In fact, he seems more aroused. Since Gerald has been experiencing some problems with impotence, Freud would suggest, as he did in Sexuality and the Psychology of Love, that impotent males often have a pathological need to belittle or denigrate the object of their desire to obtain sexual satisfaction.
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