Paper on She’s Come Undone, by Wally Lamb
“She comes undone” is an intriguing novel about a catastrophic childhood, teenage, and contorted adulthood of a strong spirited woman whose life is marred by grief and guilt. Dolores Price is the only child of a vulnerable Bernice and an abusive and negligent father Tony. After her father leaves them for another woman, her mother suffers emotional anguish and is taken to a mental facility and later dies. Dolores is then taken to Rhode Island to live with her grandmother. At the age of thirteen, she is raped by her neighbor in a dog pound. Her life takes a turn for the worst as she starts to eat herself to obesity and watches the television all day. She joins college and on one night she tries to kill herself. She undergoes psychiatric help and marries Dante. After her husband forces her to abort she is devastated and leaves him. She later meets a man she loves and starts a new course in her life.
At the beginning of the story, Dolores states “Mine is a story of craving; an unreliable account of lusts and troubles that begin somehow in 1956 on the day our free television was delivered” (Lamb, 14). She gives a clear definition of the story of her life from this excerpt. Dolores’ life is marked by her emotional desires and the many problems she goes through. Her assessment of her life from this excerpt is therefore true. Her troubles in life begin when her father leaves abandons her with her mother. She had just been playing with him a few days before he left them and the time she bonded with him gave her hopes of a fruitful relationship father-daughter relationship.
When her mother is taken to a mental hospital she loses parental love and guidance. She is forced to move to her grandmother’s place where she is friendless. She becomes lonelier when she is taken o strict Catholic school. She caters for her emotional distress by watching the television all day and eating. The TV therefore was a place where she could escape her reality and troubles. In addition, food was a means of comfort. Her troubles continue after her charming neighbor rapes her and she shares her troubles with Roberta who owns a local tattoo parlor. She is further faced by more tribulations when she joins college. Students ridicule her body size and weight.
Her lusts begin when she joins college and develops a secret obsession for her roommate’s boyfriend. Dante sends his girlfriend love letters coupled with nude photos. When Dolores sees them, she develops a deep interest in him. She also has an ill conceived affair with a lesbian janitor at the university in a one night stand. She moves to Vermont after being institutionalized at a mental facility for several years and losing weight. At Vermont, she has located her college obsession Dante. She sees him and thinks “He seemed real than his pictures,” (Lamb, 305). They eventually get married. She desires to have a child but Dante tells her to abort the child. Consequently, she divorces him after realizing his controlling nature is frustrating her. She continues to yearn for a child a dream she has had for a long time. When she remarries Thayer they seek an IVF treatment to have the baby but are unsuccessful.
Therefore, her lusts and troubles do not emanate from the delivery of the television but rather the emotional problems caused during her childhood. Events prior to having the TV and after its delivery are the causes of her agony. Television only made her lose herself from the grim reality of a troubled upbringing. The causative mechanism in this story is psychological which consequently affects physical and social aspects of Dolores life. Form the beginning when she does not have parental love to the effects of rape and self pity and grief her life is set to be full of difficulties. Her sorrows also lead her to attempt suicide and further frustrations.
Work cited
Lamb, Wally. She’s Come Undone. New York: Washington Square Press, 1996. Print.
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