ores goes to college in Pennsylvania she weighs in at 257 pounds. But somehow, in the midst of all these trials and tribulations, (I won’t sully the long literary and philosophical tradition of tragedy by calling this expression of weariness a tragedy) Dolores finds a resting place with some degree of happiness.
Wally Lamb employs several techniques to deliver what many consider a tour de force. He parallels Dolores’ life with that of her mother and uses water as a symbol of both Dolores’ breaking points and eventual recovery. And though Lamb doesn’t concern himself too much with the big questions such as God and religion, this theme is given some topical treatment. This paper will discuss a few of these techniques employed by Lamb in order to tell us the story of Dolores Price, a person who is presented as an outsider, who feels like an outsider and whose position as an outsider frames her interpretation of the events in her life.
One of the ways in which Lamb celebrates Dolores’ triumphant recovery at the end of the novel is by making parallels between her life and her mother’s life throughout the book. Dolores’ life is seen as a success compared to her mother’s life. Their lives are similar in many ways and the reader often feels that Dolores will come to a similar end. Both she and her mother spend time in mental institutions. However, Dolores lives past the early demise of her mother at the age of 38 and finds some peace and happiness in her life. Early in the book we see differences drawn between her mother’s shyness and Dolores’ forward, cynical and outwardly rude behavior: “On the bus back home, Ma began rambling on about what being a girl had been like for her--how if she could have changed one thing about herself, it would be her shyness” (Lamb 31). This comparison between their childhood is given additional treatment when Dolores goes to live with her grandmother in Rhode Island. Dol...