Whales

Blowhole

There's a ton of whale imagery in this book. Get it? Ton? Whale? Imagery? Here are just a few instances of when a whale surfaces. (Get it? Surfaces? Goodness, we crack ourselves up.) Check it:

• Dolores's dad tells her, "When I was a kid about your age, I saw a whale right out past that red buoy. […] Stuck in the shallow water" (1.59). People nudged it back to sea.
• Dottie says, "We're whales" (15.168).
• Humpbacks beach themselves off Wellfleet.
• Dolores goes to see the Wellfleet whale, and it actually isn't dead. "From out in the water came noises: clicks and sighs and heavings—the sounds of despair" (16.178). But the whale is too far ashore and too heavy to do anything about its plight. Plus the whale looks different up close: "her skin was mottled, blotched with darker and lighter grays" (16.267).
• Dolores tells Dante, "Whales […] That's what I believe in" (20.224).
• When she finally gets a car as an adult, Dolores and Roberta go to see the whales, but they're too late in the season to see them.
• Dolores sees a whale in the final scene of the book. How do we know? She yells out "I saw her!" (29.83)

So either whales are important to Dolores because of what they symbolize—quiet power lurking beneath the surface, a need to break free (whales have to come above water to take in air), and a tendency to get stuck on shore and need help getting home—or she's just a fat girl who loves whales, offending many real-life fat girls who don't love whales and are offended by the association. Discuss.