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She's Come Undone By Wally Lamb Analysis

942 Words4 Pages

She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb is a coming of age story that demonstrates heartbreak and severe struggles. When Dolores gets a television in her house, her life begins to fall apart. Her father isn’t a part of her life anymore, her mother is sent to a mental hospital and eventually dies, she’s raped, and is bullied at school. This is all very tough for Dolores and she eventually ends up in a mental hospital herself. This did seem to make her more mentally stable, however when she and her husband divorce, she begins unhealthy habits again. Now that she’s more mature, Dolores understands that this needs to change. When she gets to know Thayer, she develops feelings for him and he helps bring her back to life. Lamb wrote a very heart wrenching novel that shows happiness can come from very dark places. However, because Lamb is male, he is not able to authenticate a female voice. Lamb credits all Dolores’s changes to men, and he …show more content…

Before Dolores meets Thayer, she’s in a very dark place. However, Lamb makes it so that once she gets to know Thayer and falls in love with him, she is reborn. Lamb shows through his writing that the main reason Dolores is in a happy place now is because of Thayer. Thayer takes Dolores whale watching, and this seems to be where Dolores is reborn. She is criscened by the breaching whale, which demonstrates her rebirth. However Lamb decides to make Thayer present during her rebirth, which shows that he is a major part of her rebirth. The first thing Dolores says is “Thayer, I saw her!” (Lamb 469). It is evident that Lamb credits Dolores’s change to Thayer, which shows Lamb’s male dominance and presence in Dolores’s character. Lamb shows that Dr. Shaw and Thayer are the ones who created Dolores’s change, and almost ignores her own personal growth without them. Because of the key male presence, it is evident that Lamb’s female perspective is not authentic and

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