She's Come Undone Themes
Lies and Deceit
Wally Lamb is actually a woman. She's Come Undone is secretly Oprah's biography. Elvis Presley is still alive. These things are all lies, and not very good ones at that. We'd do well to study under...
Transformation
She's Come Undone is a story of transformation, but not a supernatural one. Dolores doesn't turn into a werewolf or vampire or golem or anything—instead she gets depressed, she overeats, and she...
Guilt and Blame
Don't blame us if you don't like She's Come Undone. Blame your mom, or Wally Lamb, or Oprah—that's what Dolores would do, anyway. She's notorious for not taking responsibility for any of her acti...
Sexuality
Sometimes it feels like the title She's Come Undone is all about Dolores's pants, and not because she's gaining weight and busts a button, but because she's often exploring her sexuality. She's Com...
Coming of Age
Here's an alternate title for She's Come Undone: She's Come of Age. And not just once, but twice—maybe even three times. We lose count. Early on, Dolores's story has all the hallmarks of a classi...
Memories and the Past
If we had a life like Dolores's in She's Come Undone, we might want to forget it—it's pretty rough, after all. But that's not what Dolores does. In fact, the whole book is her looking back at her...
Women and Femininity
A book set in the 1950s and 60s pretty much has to be concerned with women's rights because they were in the air then. When Dolores is growing up in She's Come Undone, a woman's place (like her mot...
Jealousy
We've already created a laundry list of Dolores's negative traits in She's Come Undone: lying up a storm, blaming things on others, being mean to everyone and wondering why she has no friends. Now...