The first light flooded a tsunami in her eyes. She slowly opened them in order to minimize the irritation. It was pointless because Dolores had realized it was impossible to avoid another day. All she wanted to do was stay in her warm linen haven of a bed. But, She knew the moment she put her feet down, her whole body would feel the cold shock of the real world.
The cold shock ripped through her, but she did not respond nor react, she could not let it win.
Walking down the narrow maple-floored corridor, it seemed to chill her bones every time she stepped. The light beckoning from the bedroom bay windows was stationary almost painted in place, unmoving in her presence. She continued on as the house creaked as if about to break but remained locked in place. She walked into her bathroom which still had the faint smell of her late husbands cologne. She tried to decipher the voice speaking to her through the now squeaking door; could it be his? But sometimes, she wondered if that sound was the sound of her heart, beckoning to her, every day, to scream.
The door of the Pontiac GTO clanged behind her, It had been his pride and joy. He had fully restored the engine. As the engine rumbled to life she could smell engine fuel. When, he used to come home from work every night that was the smell that would announce him. She had always adored and disliked the smell at the same time. Now it was a painful yet comforting sentiment. The Pontiac plant was looming in the distance of the road the powerful smoke stacks like swords, and there the GTO’s constant sputtering of the scent was like a million wounds at once. She had always remembered the day when she had received the call in the middle of teaching her C Period math Class, No...
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...thought it was an eye sore. The only thing she liked about it was the white patch with the sewn black words which proudly said Mark Santos, Machine Operator, Pontiac Plant, #71197 Detroit, Michigan.
As the uniform stared at her, she noticed a handkerchief sticking out of the left breast pocket. She couldn’t help but take a sniff of the smell before giving to Mark.
He took the handkerchief. and wiped his face off without a word.
“Do you need a ride home?”
His eyes sank as she asked the question.
Why don’t you come on over to my house tonight?
She saw a little nod.
The Engine roared to life once again, and again the smell wafted around the car.
“Jeez, lady something’s wrong with your car….”
She didn’t respond, as she was dazed in the smell that for once….made her feel content as she was in control of the car, going along the no longer, dark and distant road.
She started to try and forget and just fall asleep, but her thoughts would always wander too far for her to return to her natural state of mind. She contemplated with herself, why she was running away? What she was running away from?
“I couldn’t handle it David, when I found her I couldn’t handle it.” “When I saw her like that, my entire being shut down.” He put his other hand to the still painful wound on the side of his head. It was still very sore, upon putting his hand to it he could feel it throb in this thumb.
When he arrived at the home the servant who took his hoarse and directed him to the room that Mr. Usher was in greeted him. Inside the house was also very ornate, but it to had also been left alone for to long. The entire house had a gloomy atmosphere that would put a chill down most people’s spines. When he entered the room his friend was staying in he was warmly welcomed. He could not believe the changes that his dear childhood friend had endured.
“It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mourning notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro, down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the glittering circlet.
Within the thin exterior of the cold dark building she called home, she wanted to keep the bodies of those in which she felt she had a connection. Whether it be a reasonable connection or not, she didn’t want to be alone. Her connection with her father brought her to keeping his corps in the house as well as the other man. Her distance from other people around her only drove her to madness causing nothing but isolation and a craving for any type of relation she could hold or be close
The night was tempestuous and my emotions were subtle, like the flame upon a torch. They blew out at the same time that my sense of tranquility dispersed, as if the winds had simply come and gone. The shrill scream of a young girl ricocheted off the walls and for a few brief seconds, it was the only sound that I could hear. It was then that the waves of turmoil commenced to crash upon me. It seemed as though every last one of my senses were succumbed to disperse from my reach completely. As everything blurred, I could just barely make out the slam of a door from somewhere alongside me and soon, the only thing that was left in its place was an ominous silence.
No, it wasn’t out of euphoria, no it was secretive as I let the bulletproof fabric descend down her back, creeping down her dress making a trail along her spinal cord. Secretly, moving my hand to the product, I positioned my hand right atop of it, gliding the item to slip to her hip bone. Withdrawing my hand, I placed it upon her cheek slyly.
The door opened. She stood in the breach surveying the parking lot. Satisfied she turned, locked the door and hurried across the deserted lot to her car, a red Toyota with more rust than red. The tap tap of her high heels beat a drum on the cracked asphalt. The moon scurried behind the clouds as if to hide its face in horror
On the day of the full eclipse, Dolores Claiborne’s life changes forever. True, it had been changed by events beyond her control long before this fateful day, but she chooses this day to end her husband’s life so she and her family can go on living. Steven King masterfully weaves this tale of love, abuse, and denial in his novel, Dolores Claiborne, which was later turned into a movie directed by Taylor Hackford. Although the movie adaptation of the novel follows the story line very closely, there are a few changes made, such as the role of Dolores’ daughter, Selena, the intended audience to Dolores, and the importance of Salena being raped by her father.
I saw her walk over to the dressing table. I watched her appear in the circular glass of the mirror looking at me now at the end of a back and forth of mathematical light. I watched her keep on looking at me with her great hot-coal eyes: looking at me while she opened the little box covered with pink mother of pearl. I saw her powder her nose. When she finished, she closed the box, stood up again, and walked over to the lamp once more, saying: "I'm afraid that someone is dreaming about this room and revealing my secrets." And over the flame she held the same long and tremulous hand that she had been warming before sitting down at the mirror. And she said: "You don't feel the cold." And I said to her: "Sometimes." And she said to me: "You must feel it now." And then I understood why I couldn't have been alone in the seat. It was the cold that had been giving me the certainty of my solitude. "Now I feel it," I said. "And it's strange because the night is quiet. Maybe the sheet fell off." She didn't answer. Again she began to move toward the mirror and I turned again in the chair, keeping my back to her.
“The room was silent. His heart pounded the way it had on their first night together, the way it still did when he woke at a noise in the darkness and waited to hear it again - the sound of someone moving through the house, a stranger.”(4)
Pedaling my bike, I swerved left and right, dodging all sorts of trash which littered the desolate ground beneath my feet. The car was gaining ground fast; its ebony visage glaring at me like some hell-spawned demon. A cold clammy hand seemed to envelope my body. I knew I could not escape.
She slammed the door behind her. Her face was hot as she grabbed her new perfume and flung it forcefully against the wall. That was the perfume that he had bought for her. She didn't want it anymore. His voice coaxed from the other side of the door. She shouted at him to get away. Throwing herself on the bed and covering her face with one of his shirts, she cried. His voice coaxed constantly, saying Carol, let me in. Let me explain.' She shouted out no!' Then cried some more. Time passed with each sob she made. When she caught herself, there was no sound on the other side of the door. A long silence stood between her and the door. Maybe she had been too hard on him, she thought. Maybe he really had a good explanation. She hesitated before she walked toward the door and twisted the handle. Her heart was crying out to her at this moment. He wasn't there. She called out his name. "Thomas!" Her cries were interrupted by the revving of an engine in the garage. She made it to the window in time to see his Volvo back out the yard. "Thomas! Thomas....wait!" Her cries vanished into thin air as the Volvo disappeared around the bend. Carol grew really angry all of a sudden. How could he leave? He'll sleep on the couch when he gets back. Those were her thoughts.
The story unfolds in a rickety colonial mansion described by the narrator plainly as “a haunted house” (Gilman 1) with barred windows and rings bolted to the walls (Gilman 2). These features along with the “horrid” (Gilman 6) yellow wallpaper entrap the narrator and swaddle her in her own madness. As the “woman” (Gilman 6) in the wallpaper takes hold of the narrator’s psyche she grows sinisterly corporal, depicted through the unintelligible sporadic entries. The purpose of the narrator’s journal warps from entries assuring herself of the pettiness of her sickness to entries that confirm and act as horrendous safe haven’s for her unhinged mental condition. Entries like “I see her in that long shaded lane, creeping up and down. I see her in hose dark grape 'arbors, creeping all around the garden” (Gilman 8) juxtapose nonchalant writing style with dark subject matter in a way that creates a disturbing tone that must be uncomfortably ingested by
She's not sure what came over her at that minute, she doesn't even remember what she was thinking. But she does remember jumping on him, and knocking him to the floor, and then taking her knife and plunging it in and out of his back. She had no recollection of what happened for the next 10 minutes, perhaps she blacked out, but when she finally stood up, she knew what she had to do. She walked out to the garage and got a tarp down off the shelf. Her father used it to cover the wood pile, but she figured he probably wouldn't notice it was gone for a while. She took the tarp back into the kitchen and rolled the body on to it, checking to make sure that she didn't get blood onto anything that would be noticeably stained. The large pool of blood on the floor would be a problem, but she'd take care of that when she got back.