Moving Chess Pieces "Under the Dome"

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Much of the next section of King’s novel is dedicated to moving his chess pieces into place in preparation for the coming showdown between the forces of good and the forces of evil. In a series of usually brief scenes, he sets up the action to come.

The friends of Barbie gather at the Congo Church for their planned meeting. As they pray, the pastor, Piper Libby, who is “no longer sure just who” (or even whom) she is “talking to when” she herself prays, surveys the faithful, who make up the village that King so often finds it takes to thwart the threat that has raised its ugly head in his novel; all are present but Colonel Barbara and physician’s assistant Rusty Everett:

. . . two recently fired lady cops, a retired supermarket manager, a newspaperwoman who no longer had a newspaper, a librarian, the owner of the local restaurant, a Dome-widow who couldn’t stop spinning the wedding ring on her finger, the local department store tycoon, and three uncharacteristically solemn-faced kids sitting scrunched together on the sofa (807).

Twelve are present and to others are absent, making those who will spearhead the attack on evil, represented by Big Jim Rennie, Chief Randolph, and their cronies in one camp and Phil (“The Chef”) Bushey and Andy Sanders in another (and possibly the extraterrestrials or whoever created the dome in a third). The small party recalls such traditional storylines as Moses against Pharaoh, David against Goliath, or Samson against the Philistines. Except for the combat skills and military knowledge of Barbie and the police experience of the two former police officers, the underdogs don’t seem to have much going for them except their love of their community, a love of freedom, a belief and trust in God, and a willingness to fight for their values and faith. They seem hopelessly outmatched by the resourceful, efficient, and determined criminal Big Jim Rennie and who- or whatever invented the dome. The reader is interested in seeing how (not so much whether) the small band of citizens will succeed.

The fellowship fills one another in on the situation as they are able to piece it together, and former deputy Jackie Wettington offers a possible cause for the aberrant behavior of Big Jim and Junior, suggesting that they share “the same wild strain of behavior--something genetic--coming out under pressure” (808). As they discuss their plans, an intimacy develops among the conspirators, and they ask one another to call them by their first names. A feeling of solidarity emerges among them that is as strong, if not stronger, the reader suspects, as the solidarity among Jim Rennie’s supporters. After springing Barbie and Rusty from jail, the conspirators decide to use the abandoned McCoy residence atop Black Ridge, where the dome generator is, as their safe house so they can protect the generator from Big Jim, should he try to gain access to the device. Joe McClatchey recommends that they find a way to return the Geiger counter to the town hall’s bomb shelter so that, should Big Jim and his men attempt to attack the McCoy place, they will be frightened away by the Geiger counter’s warning, ignorant of the fact that the radiation at the Black Ridge site is “just a belt” through which they “could drive right through. . . without any protection at all and not get hurt” (813)

Julia’s dog Horace, left with Andrea Grinnell, again hears the voice of the dead Brenda Perkins, urging the Corgi to take the incriminating file concerning Big Jim’s illegal activities to Andrea. The selectman recalls the newspaperwoman’s earlier visit and opens the envelope so that “most of Big Jim Rennie’s secrets” fall “out into her lap” (816).

King surprises the reader by Andrea’s choice not to reveal to Julia that Horace found the file of evidence that Brenda’s husband, Police Chief Howard (“Duke”) Perkins had been compiling against Big Jim. Instead, Andrea loads a pistol, intending to murder her fellow selectman as soon as she gets the chance to do so.

Junior, having awakened in his hospital room is so sick that even he is aware of it, despite the fact that he is not suffering from one of his many, frequent headaches:

There was a suspicious weakness all down the left side of his body, and sometimes spit slipped from that side of his mouth. If he wiped it away with his left hand, sometimes he felt skin against skin and sometimes he couldn’t. In addition to this, there was a dark keyhole shape, quite large, floating in the left side of his vision. As if something had torn inside that eyeball. He supposed it had (824).

Junior hallucinates, and he is not always able to recognize these breaks with reality, As a result, he comes to believe that his father, Big Jim, has conspired with Thurston Marshall to poison him. Paranoid, Junior thinks only Alice and Aidan Appleton are trustworthy; everyone else is out to get him. He plans to kill Barbie and his father before kidnapping and becoming the caretaker for the Appleton children. Once he becomes their surrogate father, Junior believes, God will extend his lifetime, preventing his death from “thallium poisoning” (826). Better yet, he decides, he will take the children to the McCain pantry, in which he’d stored the bodies of Angie McCain, Dodee Sanders, and Lester Coggins.

Awakened by pain caused by the injuries she’d sustained during the food fight at the Food Town supermarket, Henrietta Clavard, released from the hospital to finish recuperating at home, hears the lamentations of her neighbor’s dog, Buddy. She is joined in her investigation of the incident by Douglas Twitchell, who is passing by, and they discover Henrietta’s neighbors (Buddy’s owners) dead; like an increasing number of other Chester’s Mill residents, the elderly couple has committed suicide.

Big Jim, having checked out of the hospital, meets with several of his lieutenants at Sweetbriar Rose: Police Chief Peter Randolph, Deputy Freddy Denton, and Special Deputies Melvin Searles and Carter Thibodeau, his bodyguard. Once again, for a character who is modeled upon Dick Chaney and George W. Bush, Big Jim seems a great deal like Barack Hussein Obama: “he had already started drafting a list of executive orders, which he would begin putting into effect as soon as he was granted full executive powers” (832). During their luncheon, Big Jim sets up the raid on the methamphetamine lab. Colonel C ox calls to deliver the news that there is radiation atop Black Ridge.

Claire McClatchey wants to accompany the others to break Barnie and Rusty out of jail. Her son and Jackie Wettington dissuade her.

As Rose, Ernie, and Norrie, drive to Jim Rennie’s Used Cars, King’s omniscient narrator reminds the reader that the environment under the dome is continuing to deteriorate:

“The air smells so bad,” Norrie said.

“It’s the Prestile, honey,” Rose said. “It’s turned into a big old stinky marsh where it used to run into Motton.” She knew it was more than just the smell of the dying river, but didn’t say so. They had to breathe, so there was no point in worrying about what they might be breathing in. . . (836).

After Ernie steals a van from Jim Rennie’s Used Cars, he, Norrie, and Romeo load it and Romeo’s Escalante with supplies: rifles, lead rolls, food, masking tape, and other items.

Ollie Dinsmore, tossing rocks at the dome, laments his mother’s suicidal death.

Junior Rennie leaves the hospital. Instead of killing his father first, Junior, thinking more clearly and feeling better (his limp has vanished and the keyhole shape in his left eye is smaller), decides to kill Barbie first instead, since Big Jim’s speech will provide “good cover” (849). He is still hallucinating, though: he sees a wolf in the house he shares with his father and imagines that he is now the wolf, having become a werewolf. His limp returns, too. He leaves the house, laughing at a joke he never understood and the punch line to which he’s forgotten.

Carolyn Sturges packs sandwiches for her charges, Alice and Aidan Appleton, who want to attend Big Jim’s speech.

Andrea’s appearance is much better, although she hasn’t finished undergoing her withdrawal from pain pill addiction. She stows her .38 and the file of incriminating evidence against Big Jim in her purse, intent upon killing the villain “in front of this whole town” (852).

The townspeople begin to arrive for Big Jim’s speech. Linda, with her police radio in a pocket of her dress, sits with Andrea. The Appleton children introduce themselves to the women and vice versa.

Big Kim gives Chief Randolph and Special Deputy Thibodeau instructions as to how to enter the stage and what to expect concerning the agenda: prayer, National Anthem, speech, and vote, concluding “This is going to be fine.” King’s omniscient narrator overrules Big Jim, though, announcing “He was certainly wrong about that” (856), providing foreshadowing that maintains--indeed, to a degree, increases--suspense.

As the Star-Spangled Banner begins to play inside the Town Hall, Barbie’s rescue team swings into operation, Rose Twitchell, Claire McClatchey, Joe McClatchey, Norrie Calvert, Benny Drake, Lissa Jamieson, and Joanie Calvert taking Rose’s car and the Sweetbriar van to the McCoy cabin atop Black Ridge while Ernie Calvert serves as the “wheelman” (857) for Jackie Wettington and Romeo Burpee, who use the van that Ernie stole from Big Jim’s used car lot as the getaway vehicle after the former deputy and the department store owner have liberated Colonel Barbara and physician’s assistant Rusty Everett from the Chester’s Mill police station.

During his speech, after reminding his audience that Barbie has been arrested “for the murders of Brenda Perkins, Lester Coggins, and . . . Angie McCain and Dodee Sanders,” Big Jim explains the origin of the dome (not, of course, that his explanation is likely to be trustworthy):

“What you do not know,” Big Jim continued, “is that the Dome is the result of a conspiracy perpetuated by an elite group of rogue scientists and covertly funded by a government splinter group. We are guinea pigs in an experiment, my fellow townspeople, and Dale Barbara was the man designated to chart and guide that experiment’s course from the inside!” (860)

Big Jim also informs pins his own methamphetamine operation and identifies Colonel Cox as an impersonator who is really a part of the conspiracy of “rogue scientists” and “government splinter group” members. His speech has the desired effect; it enrages his audience. Then, Big Jim tells them that, should they want Barbie shot, it will be by “police firing squad,” not by lynching (861).

Junior starts for the police station, to kill Barbie.

Big Jim warns his listeners not to believe whatever Colonel Cox says during the Dome Visitors’ Day tomorrow, cautioning them that the supposed military man may even say that Big Jim himself headed the methamphetamine operation, to which Andrea Grinnell declares, “You did” (862). She presents Big Jim’s audience with a challenge of sorts, arguing:

“You people need to put your fears aside for a moment. . . . When you do, you’ll see that the story he’s telling is ludicrous. Jim Rennie thinks you can be stampeded like cattle in a thunderstorm. I’ve lived with you all my life, and I think he’s wrong” (862).

When Big Jim orders her evicted from the town meeting and escorted home or to the hospital, the people surprise him by insisting that she be allowed to speak, too, since “she’s a town official, too” (863). Andrea holds the file of incriminating evidence against Big Jim aloft, so the audience can see it, but as she starts to explain the envelope’s contents, she gets the “shakes” (864), her revolver falls from her purse, and she is shot to death by Special Deputy Thibodeau, who also steals her envelope, hiding it under his shirt. Carolyn Sturges is shot and killed by Deputy Freddy Denton.

At the police station, Junior shoots his way past the deputies on duty, killing all three--Rupert Libby (Piper’s cousin), Stacey Moggin, and Mickey Wardlaw, reloads using Stacey’s ammunition, and goes downstairs, to the cells, to kill Barbie.

On his way to Barbie’s cell, Junior notices Rusty Everett. Before he can kill the physician’s assistant, however, Barbie calls to Junior, taunting him by saying, “I got you, didn’t I? I got you good!” and flipping him off with both middle fingers. As Junior shoos round after round of ammunition at Barbie, the colonel manages to dodge the terminally ill assassin’s aim, taunting him all the while. As Junior closes in for the kill and Barbie remembers the knife he’s hidden inside his mattress, Barbie hears Rusty cry, “Get him!” (877) and the soldier wonders which side the physician’s assistant is on.

Although Rusty came across as brave in the earlier scene in which he relocated his own dislocated fingers, he is terrified of the mad, monstrous Junior. Shamefully, “Rusty stepped backward, thinking that perhaps Junior would miss him on his way by. And perhaps kill himself after finishing with Barbie.” Rusty is ashamed of himself for thinking these thoughts: “He knew these were craven thoughts, but he also knew they were practical thoughts. He could do nothing for Barbie, but he might be able to survive himself” (871). Certainly, the reader loses some respect for Rusty, because of his display of cowardice, but the reader also realizes that the physician’s assistant, unlike Barbie, is a civilian, not a military man trained in survival tactics and close combat skills. Unlike Barbie, Rusty has never served in the military, much less in combat. Therefore, his fear is understandable, whereas Barbie’s own fear (he sweat and shook when Deputy Ollie Ortega had threatened to shoot him) is less forgivable, as is his “forgetting” about the knife he’d hidden inside his bunk’s mattress. It seems most unlikely that a man with blacks ops training, hand-to-hand fighting training, and combat experience would forget such a vitally important fact. King’s soldier does, however, and this forgetfulness could easily have cost him both his life and Rusty’s.

Fortunately, during Junior’s attack, Jackie Wettington and Romeo Burpee entered the police station and, seeing the dead deputies, hastened down to the cells, where the former deputy shoots and kills Junior before the selectman’s son can assassinate Barbie. It was to them, unseen by Barbie, that Rusty had been shouting “Get him!,” meaning Junior, not Barbie, of course.

Deputy Freddy Denton and Special Deputy Melvin Searles enter the police station just as Romeo Burpee comes upstairs. Holding the bogus lawmen at gunpoint, Rommie orders them into a cell downstairs.

Barbie, Rusty, Jackie, and Ernie wave to police officers outside the Town Hall as they drive their stolen van out of town, “headed toward Black Ridge” (881).

King’s omniscient narrator keeps the reader reading by concluding many of these brief scenes with a sentence or two that foreshadows imminent violence, conflict, or catastrophe:

. . . at least if she’s with the rest of the town, she’s safe.

That was what he thought before the gunfire started (859).



Later she would wonder how many lives might have been saved if she had told Rommie okay, let’s roll (862).

In the pandemonium, no one heard the shots from next door (867).

“Ah, Jesus,” Rusty said. “We’re in trouble.”

“I know,” Barbie said (867).



“Hello, Baaarbie,” he called down the stairs. “I know what you did to me, and I’m coming for you. If you’ve got a prayer to say, better make it a quick one” (870).



“Close your eyes, Fusty,” Junior said. “It’ll be better that way” (871).



Before the next gunshot came, Barbie had just time to think, Jesus Christ, Everett, whose side are you on? (877)



What his collapsing body revealed was Dale Barbara himself, crouching on his bunk with the carefully secreted knife in his hand. He never had a chance to open it (877).



“Let’s get out of here while we still can,” Everett said (880).

By the way, and for the record, Barbie, who was jailed on page 533 of the novel, finally gets out of his cell (thanks to his rescuers) on page 877 or thereabout, making him Jim Rennie’s prisoner for an approximate count of 344 pages, or 32 percent of the entire story! During this large portion of the novel, Rusty Everett has filled in as the protagonist, apparently, because King’s omniscient narrator (or maybe it’s the voice of the extraterrestrial invaders who may be the inventors of the dome and the cause of all the mischief) declare, when they state as much when they observe that “for the time being, these two men--our heroes, I suppose--are sitting on their bunks and playing Twenty Questions. It’s Rusty’s turn to guess” (802). The existence of two “heroes,” alternating as the story’s central and most important characters makes them both, in effect, protagonists, a feat that seems impossible, even for Stephen King, since, according to the very concept of the protagonist’s being the story’s main character suggests that he or she must also be the only such type of character in the story, for “main” means “chief,” and there is only one chief in any enterprise, a work of fiction included. King’s wanting his reader to believe that there are two “main” characters in his novel betrays another of the narrative’s problematic and confusing elements.

The Universal and the Particular “Under the Dome”

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

After smoking more methamphetamine, Andy Sanders has a seizure, during which he sees two orange trucks approaching WCIK radio station and the meth lab that he and Phil (“The Chef”) Bushey occupy behind the station. Whether the prophetic hallucination is the result of the drug or the dome is questionable, but The Chef accepts the vision as intelligence, and he and Andy plan to resist the approaching men’s attempt to take more propane from the site, murdering them, if necessary.

Earlier, through Linda Everett, Stephen King announced one of the themes of Under the Dome. He had her say that there are sides and that everyone needs to decide which side he or she will serve. He reiterates this idea, emphasizing that no one is exempt from this choice: “they were all involved, weren’t they? Under the Dome, involvement was no longer a matter of choice” (793), Claire McClatchey thinks, and, later, the omniscient narrator declares, “Claire opened her mouth to say she didn’t want to get involved, then didn’t. Because there was no choice” (794).

The “sides” of which she spoke were those of law and order versus lawlessness and disorder, but King, in commenting upon his apocalyptic novel’s title, suggests that the same is true for each and every reader, for each and every American, for each and every human being: “We’re all under the dome,” since we are alone, as far as anyone knows, on the planet Earth. We’re all in it together, he implies, and we all have to decide which side we will join in the battle against--what? Law and order versus lawlessness and disorder? Good versus evil?

Law and order versus lawlessness and disorder would be dichotomies large enough to support a 1,074-page novel, but King’s either-or is more pedestrian, more localized, and more ideological. His characters and his omniscient narrator, as his spokespersons, have time and again pointed out the enemies and the heroes. The villains are corrupt, unscrupulous, self-serving, and hypocritical politicians like Big Jim Rennie who use their strengths and talents to hurt, not help, their fellows, and his heroes are those who use their strengths and talents to help, not hurt, their fellows.

This seems a sound basis for developing a practical and pragmatic morality, and, as such, is perhaps as good as it gets in a secular society that is distrustful of, and seeks to thwart, even the idea of the desirability of divinely sanctioned morals. Although Desperation shows that King is capable of appreciating the power of God and of faith (although not in a wholly traditional way), Under the Dome, like several of his earlier works, such as Carrie, ‘Salem’s Lot, and Needful Things, show Christianity to be a dangerous breeding ground for fanaticism, repression, and violence, rather than as a force for good.

Unfortunately, Under the Dome also divides good and evil according to a second criterion, which is based upon his characters’ political beliefs rather than the helpful or harmful effects of their behavior. In Under the Dome, the heroes are largely liberals and Democrats who watch and listen faithfully to CNN, believing its newscasts to be unswervingly accurate and trustworthy. If it’s “CNN BREAKING NEWS,” it is also, for King and his characters, CNN BREAKING TRUTH. Julie Shumway, the token good Republican in Under the Dome (and, indeed, it seems, in all of King’s fiction) is more a Republican in name only, or RINO, perhaps, because she is told that she’s not all that bad as Republicans go.

I have spoken of King’s partisan politics in earlier posts concerning Under the Dome, but reiterate my complaint in this one because King himself makes this distinction between good liberal/Democrat and bad conservative/Republican again and again throughout his novel, having, he himself admits, modeled Big Jim Rennie, heart condition and all, it appears, upon former Vice-President Dick Chaney and President George W. Bush. The fact that Big Jim’s power grab in the wake of a crisis--or series of crises, some of his own making--could have been modeled more easily upon Barack Hussein Obama suggests how superficial and flimsy King’s political biases really are, although King himself seems unaware of this weakness.

Like Rham Emmanuel and President Obama, Big Jim believes that a crisis should never be allowed to go to waste: “Really, there was nothing like a scene of destruction,“ Big Jim thinks, “to get people playing follow-the-leader” (800). King would have been better off in writing a novel that he wants compared to Lord of the Flies being less the political partisan and more the universal moralist.

Of course, with King, where narrative itself is concerned, politics and other peripheral matters aside, the good often outweighs the bad. He is one hell of a good storyteller, and, of course, that’s what the reader is seeking in purchasing his work.

When Roger Killian, Stewart Bowie, and fern Bowie arrive in the orange trucks that Andy Sanders saw in the vision that accompanied his seizure, The Chef, backed up by Andy, turns them men back, confiscating one of their trucks and delivering the message to Big Jim that the methamphetamine lab is now theirs. After the men leave, The Chef tells Andy that, from now on, WCIK radio will be playing music much different than traditional Christian songs, hymns, and gospel music.

Hearing of the conduct of The Chef and Andy, Big Jim decides that he will lead an attack upon them after he speaks to the police and the people of Chester’s Mill, blaming Barbie’s followers for the methamphetamine operation as well as the arson involving Julia Shumway’s newspaper and residence, just as he has already charged Barbie himself with beating, raping, and murdering citizens of the town. The final paragraph of this scene sums up the character of Big Jim better than many pages might. The selectman says goodbye to his son, Junior, who has a malignant brain tumor: “He started out of the room, then went back and kissed his sleeping son’s cheek. Getting rid of Junior might become necessary, but for the time being, that too could wait” (800).

In Under the Dome, more so than in many of his other novels, it seems, upon one’s initial thought, that King’s omniscient narrator makes his presence known to the reader, not only speaking directly to him or her, but also paraphrasing T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, the effect of which is reminiscent of the stage manager’s address to the audience of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town or Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology:

Another night is falling on the little town of Chester’s Mill; another night under the Dome. But there is no rest for us; we have two meetings to attend, and we also ought to check up on Horace the Corgi before we sleep. Horace is keeping Andrea Grinell company tonight, and although he is for the moment biding his time, he has not forgotten the popcorn between the couch and the wall.

So let us go then, you and I, while the evening spreads out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table. Let us go while the first discolored stars begin to show overhead. This is the only town in a four-state area where they’re out tonight. Rain has overspread northern New England, and cable-news viewers will soon be treated [via CNN, the reader may be assured] to some remarkable satellite photographs showing a hole in the clouds that exactly mimics the sock-shape of Chester’s Mill. Here the stars shine down, but now they’re dirty stars because the Dome is dirty (801).

This (apparent) emphatic calling of attention to the omniscient narrator as an entity rather than as an objective and descriptive, impersonal voice is similar to the effect that King created by assembling his cast of characters at the midpoint of his novel, as if they were actors answering an encore. These techniques, well known to both playwrights and novelists, are not frequently used by either, not in modern times, at least, because they call attention to the artificiality of the story, to its fictitious nature, disturbing the reader’s suspension of disbelief by reminding him or her that the narrative is invented, a chronicle of merely imaginary events.

The example, quoted above, is not the only instance of King’s (apparent) omniscient narrator’s intrusion of himself into the novel he’s narrating, nor is it the sole instance of his paraphrasing Eliot, for the narrator interrupts his tale several more times during this scene. After a brief mention of CNN’s meteorologist Reynolds Wolf commenting upon the “fascinating phenomenon” caused by the backing up of rain clouds against the dome, the narrator again puts himself front and center:

That’s enough cable news; let us float through certain half-deserted streets [Eliot again], past the Congo church and the parsonage (the meeting there hasn’t started yet, but Piper has loaded up the big coffee urn, and Julia is making sandwiches by the light of a hissing Coleman lamp), past the McCain house surrounded by its sad sag of yellow police tape, down Town Common Hill past the Town Hall, where janitor Al Timmons and a couple of his friends are cleaning and sprucing up for the special town meeting tomorrow night, past War Memorial Plaza, where the statue of Lucien Calvert (Norrie’s great-grandfather; I probably don’t have to tell you that) keeps his long watch.

We’ll stop for a quick check on Barbie and Rusty, shall we? There’ll be no problem getting downstairs; there are only three cops in the ready room, and Stacey Moggin, who’s on the desk, is sleeping with her head pillowed on her forearm. The rest of the PD is at Food City, listening to Big Jim’s latest stemwinder [sic], but it wouldn’t matter if they were all here, because we are invisible. They would feel no more than a faint draft as we glide past them.

There’s not much to see in the Coop, because hope is invisible as we are. The two men having nothing to do but wait until tomorrow night, and hope that things break their way. Rusty’s hand hurts, but the pain isn’t as bad as he thought it might be, and the swelling isn’t as bad as he feared. Also, Stacey Moggin, God bless her heart, snuck him a couple of Excedrin around five PM.

For the time being, these two men--our heroes, I suppose--are sitting on their bunks and playing Twenty Questions. It’s Rusty’s turn to guess (802).

After another dramatic segment, wherein Barbie and Rusty are brought forward, so to speak, to speak for themselves, and the reader sees that, indeed, quite literally speaking, the inmates actually are playing Twenty Questions, King again reverts to what appears to be the direct intrusion of his omniscient narrator into the story he is telling:

We’ll leave the to shift the weight of the next twenty-four hours as best they can, shall we? Let us make our way past the still-shimmering heap of ashes that used to be the Democrat. . . (802-803).

The voice, the reader begins to suspect, is actually not that of the omniscient narrator, but that of the entities whom Rusty had discerned, in his vision at the site of the dome generator of the “leather faces,” the suspected aliens the physician’s assistant believes they are, who invented and operate the dome that keeps the town of Chester’s Mill imprisoned and cut off from the rest of the world outside the barrier. If this is the case, the use of a second omniscient narrator, that of the extraterrestrials (or presumed extraterrestrials) in addition to the conventional, narrative omniscient narrator, is extraordinary.

Why does King employ it? Some of the more obvious reasons are that the technique, being rare, adds interest to what might otherwise be drier, duller exposition; it allows King to remind the reader of the pair of meetings yet to come; of the incriminating file concerning Big Jim’s corruption, which is still available, under the end table with the spilled popcorn in Andrea’s living room and of many other narrative threads and subplots; and it reinforces the theme that pollution has an undesirable and dangerous effect upon those who live under the dome (a metaphor for the planet Earth, the atmosphere of which is the “dome”). These are minor gains, though, when the cost is a disturbance of the reader’s willing suspension of disbelief.

What bigger benefits does King enjoy as a result of having called attention to the presence of his behind-the-scenes omniscient narrator in such a blatant way? Certainly, the technique, calling attention to the artificiality of King’s narrative, as a fictional construction, as it does, suggests that the town under the dome is itself something of an artificial construct--that is, the world, the planet Earth, although it is a natural object, is also an artificial phenomenon: it’s culture is a human artifact, as are the nations, societies, and communities that make up the human-designed and engineered aspect of the planet.

King’s inclusion of the intrusive alien intelligence (if that is what it turns out to be--I am writing these blog entries as a reader, as I read the novel, as an example of the sort of dialogue, as it were, that occurs between the reader and the literary work as he or she imagines it to be) alongside of, or in place of, the conventional, narrative omniscient narrator, is an astonishing one and, as such, one that must be regarded as intentional and deliberate.

It invites the reader to step outside him- or herself, as it were, and, indeed, outside his or her own consciousness not only as an individual but as a human being, to see his or her world (or, at least, that part of it that is Chester’s Mill, Maine) from the more universal perspective of an invading extraterrestrial intelligence, as C. S. Lewis does, for example, in The Screwtape Letters, as Jonathan Swift does in Gulliver’s Travels, and as Thornton Wilder does in Our Town (and many others have in other works as well). This is an appropriate level, whether considered from the vantage point of a global perspective, such as all humanity’s would be, or the perspective of an extraterrestrial intelligence. However, its relationship to that of the traditional, narrative omniscient narrator is unclear and perhaps problematic.  (It remains problematic--perhaps even more so--if I am wrong in assuming that this omniscient point of view is not that of alien intruders, but the established narrative one, because the voice in which this viewpoint is delivered differs vastly from the established one, which causes a good deal of unnecessary confusion if it is not a separate and distinct narraor's voice--i. e., the aliens'.)

Something else is problematic as well. King invites the reader to step outside him- or herself and, indeed, the human race and to view Chester’s Mill (and the planet) as a curious and, yes, polluted affair, but, at the same time, he remains extraordinarily provincial in his “us” liberals/Democrats/CNN aficionados (the good guys), versus “them” conservatives/Republicans/FOX News fans (the bad guys). Once again, King’s vision as an artist is itself bifurcated. He wants to think globally, but his sympathies (and perceptions) are local.

Still, he is a compelling storyteller, and, as always, the reader reads on.

A Peculiar Form of Suspense “Under the Dome”

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Julia Shumway and Jackie Wettington have something in common: a crush on Colonel James O. Cox, whom they consider good-looking (Julia) and forceful (Jackie). For her part, Rose Twitchell prefers CNN’s Wolfe Blitzer, who “can,” as far as she’s concerned, “eat crackers in my bed anytime” he wishes (765). King’s own admiration for the journalist is clear, as is his respect for CNN. Everyone, it appears, from the patrons of Dippy’s Roadhouse and the clientele of Sweetbriar Rose restaurant watch the news channel, as does Second Selectman Big Jim Rennie, the novel’s antagonist. Any newscasts that occur during Under the Dome’s action are those that are transmitted by CNN. Even the hospital staff listen to CNN. It’s tuned in, with John Roberts broadcasting, when Rusty Everett has his run-in with Big Jim. Indeed, on the rare occasion that King refers at all to his beloved CNN’s chief rival, FOX News, it is with derision. For example, when one of the FOX News team dares to ask Colonel Cox a question during the press conference that the military man calls, one of King’s characters is delighted to see the journalist put in his place. The colonel has just told the press corps that the Army has “established a no-go-zone around the Dome” because of a concern that “the Dome might have” unrecognized “harmful effects” in addition to the hazards that it is known to possess:

“Are you talking about radiation, Colonel?” someone called.

Cox froze him with a glance, and when he seemed to consider the reporter properly chastised (not Wolfie, Rose was pleased to see, but that half-bald, no-spin yapper from FOX News), he went on (762).

The reader is apt to note, with dismay, that King apparently does believe, after all, in a simple, black-and-white world in which the good guys are his guys (Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Barbara Starr, John Roberts) and the bad guys are not. It is regrettable that someone who’s written so many books for so long, about so many issues, albeit through the medium of fiction, rather than as a journalist, would still perceive politics, journalism, social, and military matters in such an unsophisticated manner.

Like his character, Linda Everett, he apparently believes that “there are sides“--two of them--in news reporting, at least, just as it is clear that he has definitely chosen his side. Obviously, King has every right to take sides--Under the Dome is his novel, after all, and its world is his world--but the reader who doesn’t share his biases is apt to resent his arrogance in assuming that CNN is respectable and that FOX News is the home of “yappers.” Moreover, such a reader is likely to wonder how such biases affect the thought processes of his characters, one of whom admits to having an almost romantic crush on Blitzer. Is one reading a liberal/Democrat novel or a non-partisan novel? If it’s not necessary to insert a particular political point of view into the story, one has to wonder why King does so. The term “self-indulgent” comes to mind, as it does, in the reading of such novels as Lisey’s Story and Duma Key. Please, Mr. King, the reader might want to plead, especially if he or she is a moderate, a conservative, an independent, or a Republican, just tell the story; a paean to CNN and the liberal point of view is not needed or particularly desired.

During “CNN BREAKING NEWS,“ Colonel Cox‘s press conference is announced. The colonel has called the conference to make life difficult for Big Jim and to frustrate the selectman’s push for increased political power as he, like Rahm Emmanuel, seeks to take full advantage of the crisis represented by the mysterious dome’s descent over the isolated town of Chester’s Mill, Maine. He does so by announcing a Dome Visitors’ Day and by calling upon Big Jim to answer such questions from the press corps (or from those who are allowed to ask questions), such as whether there are “any plans to add a press conference” (asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer); why Big Jim, rather than Colonel Barbara, is in charge under the dome (asked by Wolf Blizer); whether Big Jim would bother to attend such a press conference when he is reportedly involved in criminal activities or “financial mismanagement” (asked by NBC’s Lester Holt); whether it is true that Colonel Barbara has been arrested for serial murders (asked by CBS’ Rita Braver); and whether Barbie could have been “jailed to keep him from taking control as the President ordered” (asked by PBS’ Ray Suarez). (No questions are accepted from FOX News representatives. Apparently, Colonel Cox found the one about radiation impertinent.)

Following the press conference that Julia, Jackie, Rose, and others of Barbie’s supporters watch at Sweetbriar Rose, King’s omniscient narrator transports the reader to the jail, where Barbie is allowed to interact with Deputy Manuel Ortega, lest the reader forget completely about the passive protagonist. In this scene, Barbie comes off as even weaker and more ineffective than he has seemed so far. In fact, during the scene when he was shown as willing to drink from the cell’s toilet bowl rather than to faint from dehydration and the omniscient narrator shared with the reader Barbie’s past training in black ops, hand-to-hand combat, and interrogation techniques, referencing his service in Iraq, Barbie, who single-handedly bested four tough thugs in the parking lot outside Dippy’s Roadhouse, seemed as rough and ready as John Rambo.

Since then, however, much of the military toughness of the colonel has seemingly dulled. He’s been in jail since page 533, mostly being verbally and physically abused and subjected to the childish pranks of his jailers (who have salted his drinking water, for example, and contaminated his cereal with spit and boogers). He’s succeeded in very little otherwise, except to have stashed his pocketknife inside his bunk’s mattress. During this scene, Ortega, upset by Colonel Cox’s press conference (and, no doubt, by Wolf Blitzer’s questions), threatens Barbie with his .45, leaving Barbie shaken and sweating: “Barbie leaned back against the wall and let out a breath. There was sweat on his forehead. The hand he lifted to wipe it off was shaking” (768).

Barbie looks weaker yet because of the reader’s inevitable comparison of him, the passive protagonist, with Big Jim Rennie, the active antagonist. While, it may be argued, Barbie is--or can be--tough and is courageous, and that he has advanced hand-to-hand and perhaps martial arts skills, he seems to lack the passion for goodness that Big Jim has for evil. Big Jim is a determined, relentless adversary, who uses imagination, audacity, and intelligence to pursue his goals. He is also courageous and resourceful, organized and efficient, confident and defiant. A natural leader, Big Jim commands loyalty, inspires both respect and fear, and exhibits political acumen. Although he is contemptuous of others, seeing them as weak or dependent and he is involved in crime, including not only the manufacture and distribution of methamphetamine, but also murder, Big Jim inspires the reader’s grudging respect in the same way that a Mafia godfather or a third-world strongman might do. He is glamorous, impressive, and powerful, a commanding figure with genuine presence. The passive Barbie, although he has shown that he can fight and is mentally tough as well as physically strong, doesn’t seem to be nearly as imposing as the villainous Big Jim.

Barbie comes off even less heroic when his passivity is juxtaposed to physician assistant Rusty Everett’s confrontation with Big Jim Rennie as he checks on his patient’s condition following Big Jim’s admittance to the hospital for treatment of his arrhythmia. Rusty has already confronted Big Jim once, in the selectman’s office, demanding an account as to what became of the propane that was stolen from the hospital, extracting from Big Jim the promise to investigate the matter, which, along with Big Jim’s decision to shut down his illegal drug operation, results in the return of two stolen tanks. Now, the courageous, if naïve, Rusty confronts the politician about a much more serious matter, declaring “I know you killed Coggins” (778), telling him about the baseball stitch marks he has seen on the Reverend Coggins’ face, which match those on the gold-plated baseball in Big Jim’s office, and demanding that Big Jim and Andy Sanders “step down” and allow Third Selectman Andrea Grinnell to “take over” the government of Chester’s Mill. However, Rusty crosses the line, morally and legally, when he threatens to withhold lifesaving medication from his patient if Big Jim refuses to “step down.” Unfortunately, Rusty is no match for his unscrupulous and murderous foe, who has concealed Deputy Freddy Denton and his bodyguard Special Deputy Carter Thibodeau in his hospital room’s bathroom. Having heard Rusty threaten to withhold the drugs that would keep Big Jim alive unless the politician agrees to resign from office, they are able to charge Rusty with extortion. In addition, they add the trumped-up charges of resisting arrest and attempted murder. They also allege that their prisoner, Colonel Barbara, or “Barbie,” “put him up to it” (782). After ordering Freddy to retrieve his cellular telephone, which Rusty had pocketed, Big Jim steps on Rusty’s left hand, seemingly breaking three of his fingers. (Actually, they are dislocated, although the fifth metacarpal of his hand is broken.) The physician’s assistant is then jailed, three cells down from Barbie, and the contrast between the assertive medic and the passive soldier is made even more striking, as, despite extreme pain, Rusty pulls his dislocated fingers, except for the pinkie, back into place, even managing to joke about his condition as he does so, saying he needs to “fix” his middle finger, as he “may need it” to flip off Big Jim and his cronies (788). Although Rusty no doubt acted rashly, both times that he confronted Big Jim (as he did when he seized the dome genberator), he has hardly made the situation any worse than it already is. The question is whether Barbie, jailed for over 250 pages now, has made anything better.

In any case, concerned that the jail is bugged, Barbie mouths the news to Rusty that, tomorrow night, a rescue is to be mounted, intelligence of which Rusty is already aware. Barbie adds, still mouthing the words, that they will require a safe house in which to stay following their escape, and Rusty thinks that, “thanks to Joe McClatchey and his friends. . . he had that part covered” (789).

King is a master storyteller with a long history of writing bestsellers, so it seems unlikely that he would be unaware of the apparent passivity of his jailed soldier. Barbie was promoted to the rank of colonel as the president’s “inside man.” He has displayed impressive combat skills in his fight against the four thugs who attacked him outside Dippy’s Roadhouse. He can be resourceful (he hid his pocketknife inside the jailhouse bunk’s mattress and drinks from a toilet bowl), and he is trained in close combat, interrogation, and black ops skills. He is respected by Colonel Cox, a “forceful” man. However, King’s having kept him in jail for a fourth of his novel, wherein he’s the frequent butt of jokes and jibes and has been physically assaulted and threatened with death on several occasions as well, makes Barbie seem more pitiful than admirable, as does Rusty’s manly, take-charge conduct, juxtaposed to Barbie’s apparent acquiescence to his foes. It will take extreme acts of heroism before the end of the story for Barbie to redeem himself as the hero whose past training, experience, and action has led the reader to believe he is capable of being. Perhaps King can pull it off. After all, he is a master storyteller with a long history of writing bestsellers. Still, the reader wonders, which is, in its own way, another, if rather peculiar, form of suspense.

Party Politics “Under the Dome”

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

For quite a few pages, ever since Joe McClatchey, Norrie Calvert, and Benny Drake discovered what they (and physician’s assistant Rusty Everett) believe is the dome generator, King has been building suspense concerning the device. Finally, Rusty not only sees it firsthand, but conducts a couple of tentative experiments with it. The device is odd: although the radiation level has been just shy of the danger zone all the way up Black Ridge, from McCoy’s Orchard, the Geiger counter now reads the threat as zero, and the condition of a hale and hearty squirrel, living (or, at least, foraging) in the area testifies to the safety of the area--from radiation, at any rate. Unwisely, Rusty, perhaps emboldened by the zero reading and the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed rodent, “bent and touched the surface of the generator--if it was a generator.” Although he is wearing protective gloves, the result of his contact is immediate:

A strong shock immediately surged up his arm and through his body. He tried to pull back and couldn’t. His muscles were locked up tight. The Geiger counter gave a single bray, then fell silent. Rusty had no idea whether or not the needle swung into the danger zone, because he couldn’t move his eyes, either. The light was leaving the world, funneling out of it like water going down a bathtub drain, and he thought with sudden clam clarity: I’m going to die. . . (736).

However, Rusty doesn’t die. Instead, he has either a hallucination or makes a telepathic connection, albeit one way, with him as the receiver, with an extraterrestrial race--or so, at least, he believes, seeing “faces.” but not “human faces, and later he would not be sure they were faces at all. They were geometric solids that seemed to be padded in leather” with “diamond shapes on their sides” that “could have been ears.” These “heads--if they were heads--turned to each other. . . In [apparent] discussion,” and Rusty thinks he “heard laughter,” picturing children at play at the local grammar school his daughters attend (735)

Rusty removes his iron apron and lays it over the generator. The metal catches fire, blisters, and disintegrates Despite witnessing the apparent defensive capability of the device and having himself been shocked by it, Rusty, having removed his gloves, seizes the generator in his bare hands, anticipating another shock, a burn, or another telepathic connection to the aliens. Instead, “there was nothing” (737). Despite its relatively small size--a little bigger than the proverbial breadbox--the generator refuses to budge. As Rusty wonders what to do next, he hears a tremendous explosion, looks up, and sees that another airplane, this one a large passenger jet, has crashed into the dome.

As a result of the jet’s crashing into the barrier, the townspeople unite more and more, wearing blue armbands as a sign of their solidarity. This solidarity is necessary, of course, to secure Big Jim Rennie’s political base and power, and it happens just before the selectman gives his speech to the townspeople. In including this scene, King also takes the opportunity to philosophize about human behavior, suggesting that, for approximately fifty percent of a population, long-term trauma encourages acceptance in place of denial. Acceptance, in turn, succumbs to dependency, and dependency gives way to resignation:

Earlier that morning, perhaps fifteen percent of the town was wearing blue “solidarity” armbands; by sundown on this Wednesday in October, it will be twice that. When the sun comes up tomorrow, it will be over fifty percent of the population.
Denial gives way to acceptance; acceptance breeds dependence. Anyone who’s ever cared for a terminal patient will tell you that, too. . . .

They need someone to sit with them when the night is dark and the hours stretch out. They need someone to say, Sleep now, it will be better in the morning. I’m here, so sleep. Sleep now. Sleep and let me take care of everything.

Sleep (740).

For years, the townspeople of Chester’s Mill have been more or less content, most of the time, to let Big Jim Rennie take charge of their affairs, to look out for the supposed good of the town, to take care of them, both individually and collectively. Now that they are involved in a crisis beyond human reckoning, the townspeople seem prepared to accept his dictatorial leadership, depending upon his strength and courage, despite his corruption. King has set the stage for Big Jim’s gathering of greater and greater power unto himself during his upcoming speech before the accepting, dependent, and resigned citizenry of Chester’s Mill. Big Jim himself knows as much. As he stands outside Town Hall, having hurried forth to see what caused the great explosion that occurred as he was working on his speeches--”one to the cops tonight. . . [and] one to the entire town tomorrow night”--he observes the townspeople “staring up into the sky with their mouths gaped open,” and he thinks, “they looked like sheep dressed in human clothing. Tomorrow night they would crowd into the Town Hall and go baaa baaa baaa, when’ll it get better? And baaa baaa baaa, take care of us until it does. And he would” (741).

Meanwhile, since page 533, Colonel Dale (“Barbie”) Barbara has been in jail on trumped-up assault, rape, and murder charges. Apart from drinking from his toilet bowl, eating cereal upon which his jailers have spat and deposited nasal mucus, and bantering with his captors while he waits for Deputy Jackie Wettington to rescue him, he does precious little. Even before his incarceration, he didn’t do much other than cook at the local restaurant, get into a fight, and quell a riot. All in all, to say that Barbie is a passive protagonist is putting it mildly. Perhaps the fictional version of President Barack Hussein Obama erred in selecting Barbie as his official representative inside the dome. Alternatively, King may be saving Barbie’s heroic feats for the resolution of his massive story. If so, though, one has to wonder, at this point, whether the reader will care.

It is no longer either acceptable to readers from either an artistic standpoint or from a politically correct perspective to characterize dramatic personae on the basis of their physical appearance, so that physically unattractive characters are villains and beautiful people are heroes or heroines, as was the stereotypical practice of days gone by. However, King uses a similar approach, which is both aesthetically and socially acceptable (so far): he uses references to physical organs (his male characters often exhibit fear, for instance, by a tightening of, or a crawling sensation in, their testes and scrota, and, throughout Under the Dome, King references Big Jim’s heart condition--an Achilles’ heel, no doubt--as a means of suggesting his emotional state. An example occurs when he fears that the crashing jet may have been the detonation of an atomic bomb that could destroy the dome before Big Jim would like to have the barrier obliterated and the townspeople rescued. It is only when he understands that the explosion was that of an aircraft rather than a bomb that he begins to relax and his heart rate slows: “Big Jim felt a cautious sense of relief, and his triphammering heart slowed a bit. It was a plane. . . just a plane and not a nuke or some kind of super-missile. . . “ (740). However, when Colonel Cox is slow to get back to him in confirmation of the airliner’s identity, his heart rate again increases: “Big Jim’s heart had been slowing toward its normal speed (if a hundred and twenty beats per minute can be so characterized), but now it sped up again and took one of those looping misbeats. He coughed and pounded his chest. His heart seemed almost to settle, then went into a full-blown arrhythmia” (741). Since the heart symbolizes the spiritual, moral, and emotional aspects of the personality, King has chosen wisely in using Big Jim’s heart condition as a metaphor for his personal, political, and spiritual corruption.

Once again, although King cites George W. Bush and Dick Cheney (who, like Big Jim, has a bad heart) as his models for Big Jim, there are strong parallels in the selectman’s behavior to both President Obama and his chief advisor, Rahm Emmanuel. Like Emmanuel, Big Jim believes in never letting a crisis go to waste, and, like Obama, he uses such situations to further his own political base and personal power, acting in a tyrannical and self-righteous manner, believing that not only does he know what’s best for the town he governs but also that he is doing God’s will in doing so. The arrogance of Emmanuel, Obama, and Big Jim is another striking parallel between the situation “under the dome” and that in present-day America. Big Jim, who sees his fellow townspeople as “sheep,” thinks “Sheep need a shepherd,” and he believes that, “under certain circumstances, panic could be good. Under certain circumstances, it could--like food riots and acts of arson--have a beneficial effect.” (So might such conditions as a worldwide economic meltdown, worsened by runaway spending; a seemingly endless war in Afghanistan; the Gulf oil spill; international terrorism; a porous border and massive illegal immigration; and whatever “crisis” exists or can be invented next, it seems.) Like Obama, who seldom speaks without a carefully prepared speech projected onto a teleprompter, Big Jim also knows the value of prepared speeches. When Colonel Cox pleads with the selectman to make sure that the people of Chester’s Mill understand that the jetliner’s crash was “just an accident,” Big Jim thinks, “They’ll know what I tell them and believe what I want them to” (742).

Are such parallels intentional, showing that King’s political thought processes have matured beyond black-or-white, either-or fallacious form of partisan politics and the playing of an “us” liberals/Democrats against “them” conservatives/Republicans blame game, or are these parallels the result of mere coincidence, suggesting that King remains more an ideologue than an independent thinker? Is it possible that one of the world’s most popular writers hasn’t stretched his own political perspective beyond that of his college years when it was all the rage to “STICK IT TO THE MAN,” as young Joe McClatchey would have had his fellow students do in response to the descent of the dome? Is it possible that King, who shows himself to be fairly astute in his analysis and understanding of human behavior, could be so superficial and stereotypical in his perception of politics? It is possible, of course, but it’s not desirable. According to his own statements, Big Jim is modeled upon President Bush (the son) and Vice-President Chaney. That the same character could easily have been modeled upon President Obama and Rahm Emmanuel should teach King something, if it hasn’t already: the two-party system is more corrupt than Big Jim Rennie, offering little difference between the platforms and, therefore, voters’ alternatives. That’s what the Tea Party and the increasing ranks of moderates and independents without political party affiliation are all about. If it’s not what Under the Dome is all about, let’s hope that, in his next novel, King is sadder but wiser in the ways of the world.

News reaches Rusty from the hospital: both Big Jim, suffering from arrhythmia, and Junior, diagnosed with having a possible brain tumor, have been admitted to the medical facility. On their way back to Chester’s Mill from Black Ridge, Rusty swear his companions to silence concerning his discovery of the dome generator.

Rose Twitchell takes sandwiches to Barbie and, despite Melvin Searles’ presence, Barbie succeeds in relaying a message to his former employer: “Tell her [Deputy Jackie Wettington, who plans to break Barbie out of jail] I said you’re all right” (747), meaning that it’s all right for Jackie to share her secrets with Rose.

Andy Sanders and The Chef smoke methamphetamine while the latter lectures the former, based upon a wild interpretation of the book of Revelation., concerning their roles as “Christian soldiers” in the apocalypse that is to come on Halloween, if not earlier. Both men also vow never to let Big Jim and his cronies shut down their meth lab, as Big Jim has said he will do to get “rid of the evidence” of his illegal operation ((751).

As Barbie was drafted back into the Army as a colonel by presidential order, so is Deputy Jackie Wettington, a former sergeant, who’s been “stop-lossed” and assigned the “twofold” mission of rescuing Barbie from jail and of ousting Big Jim from his office as selectman-become-dictator. King loses this section of his novel by setting the stage for future developments involving a conflict between Barbie and Wettington and their followers and Big Jim and his camp. With Halloween coming early, perhaps, to Chester’s Mill and Rusty Everett’s discovery of the dome generator, things are likely to be lively, despite a relatively passive protagonist, Big Jim’s arrhythmia, and Junior’s glioma. After all, the reader has been warned, “that dead band song” is about to “play.”