Character Analysis
Dulcie, the punk-rock angel who enjoys bedazzling her wings, is pretty much Cam's dream girl. She's not, however, a strict allusion to the Dulcinea from Don Quixote, who is a fictionalized ideal. Our Dulcie is funny, she's smart, she wears torn fishnet stockings—but she's also a bit flawed. It's an important difference between this character and her namesake.
Dulcie acts as the personification of Cam's conscience. She helps him puzzle through his troubles by acting as a sounding board against which he can lob questions and seek guidance. Sometimes being Cam's conscience isn't such a great job, though, particular as his journey progresses and he starts to lose his protective emotional barrier. Check out how Dulcie takes the blame:
"I'm mad because you came into my life and totally messed with it so I don't know what's what anymore."
"Uh-huh."
"I'm mad because you told me about those guys and now I have to care. I'm mad because you won't tell what's going to happen to me. Because you don't give guarantees."
"True, true." Her wings open up again.
"Jesus. I'm mad because you make me feel like things are possible when they probably aren't, or maybe they are, I don't know. I'm mad because…"
"Because?"
"Because you make me give a s***." (37.153-159)
Thing is, since Dulcie is really just Cam's conscience, she is to blame for this newfound vulnerability Cam feels—as he connects with his conscience instead of numbing himself, he starts to care more about the world and people he knows. He just doesn't know that he's really blaming himself when he blames Dulcie because he doesn't know that all the action is really happening inside his comatose head.
Just like Cam borrows Dulcie's name from what he's reading at the time he gets sick, other aspects of Dulcie are grabbed from the real world by Cam's mad cow-riddled brain. Early in the book, for instance, Cam goes to visit his dad at work and sees a snow globe in his office:
A black box with an angel snow globe Jenna and I gave him for Christmas one year. The base broke off a while back, and now the angel leans against the glass with both hands like she's trying to get out. (4.56)
Sound familiar? Look at this bit from when Cam and the gang are assaulted by guys from United Snow Globes Wholesalers:
But I can't stop staring at the snow globe. It's got an angel inside. Her hands are pressed against the glass and her tiny plastic mouth is open in a scream. (47.70)
Yup—Dulcie is definitely a figment of Cam's imagination. Just like Balder is inspired by the traveling gnome pictures his father gives him, Dulcie is based on the fleeting impression from the broken snow globe. She's all Cam all the time, even if he thinks she's actually separate from him.