Characters
Dolores Claiborne – The novel's narrator and protagonist, she is a 65-year-old housekeeper. Caustic but not embittered by a lifetime of hard work and suffering, she is forced to confront her past sins to clear her name of a murder she did not commit. Despite expressing disparaging sentiments against President Kennedy throughout the novel, she is disclosed to be a registered Democrat near the novel's end.
Vera Donovan – Dolores's employer and a demanding, high-handed woman (in Dolores's phrasing, "a high-riding bitch"), she has a fanatical devotion to her complicated household procedures and will fire her hired help for the smallest of mistakes.
Joe St. George – Dolores's husband, she marries him directly out of high school. Inconsistently employed, racist, and both verbally and physically abusive to his family.
Selena St. George – Dolores's and Joe's daughter, and extremely bright and friendly as a girl, she is an honor student by the time she is in high school. As an adult, Selena moves to New York and becomes a well-known journalist, but struggles with alcoholism and becomes distant from her mother.
Joe St. George Jr. – Dolores and Joe's older son, he is harassed and belittled by his father for his intelligence, sensitivity, and lack of physical prowess, and by the time of Joe's death, his son actively despises him. When his father dies, he surprisingly takes it the hardest of the three children, struggling with guilt over his hatred for his father. As an adult, he becomes a state senator in Maine and has a close relationship with his mother.
Pete St. George – Dolores's youngest son, nine years old when his father dies, he is referred to as "little Pete" or "Petey" by his mother, he idolizes his father and begins to imitate him, getting into fights at school and using racial slurs he is too young to understand. As an adult, he enlists in the army and is killed in Saigon, Vietnam shortly before the end of the war.
Michael Donovan – Vera's husband, he is a millionaire airplane manufacturer. He is killed in a car crash outside Baltimore on the way back from his mistress's apartment, after Vera tampered with his brakes.
Donald and Helga Donovan – Vera's children, they are last seen by Dolores in 1961, when Donald is 16 and Helga is 14, after an argument in which Vera refuses to let Helga get a driver's license. Dolores speculates that they were aware or suspicious of their mother's role in their father's death and may even have been blackmailing her. Vera spends years telling Dolores they are estranged and creates elaborate lies of their current careers and families, but after her death, it emerges that they had died several months after Dolores last saw them, having veered off the road in a car driven by Helga.
Ted Kenopensky – Vera's handyman and occasional lover, Dolores refers to him as "the Hunky". Dolores believes he conspired with Vera to kill her husband. He is killed in a car crash shortly after Vera's health begins to fail.
Mr. Pease – A banker, he unwillingly helps Dolores discover what Joe has done with the money he has stolen from her children's college funds. In doing so, he shares confidential information with her against regulations, and after Joe's death, he does not come forward to share his knowledge of Dolores's motives for murder, which Dolores believes is out of fear of his own culpability.
Dr. John McAuliffe – The county medical examiner, he examines Joe's body. A small, fastidious Scotsman, he suspects Dolores of killing her husband and harshly interrogates her prior to the official inquest, nearly cornering her with discrepancies in her story. He is eventually forced to enter a verdict of accidental death, which he does unwillingly.
Garrett Thibodeau – The town constable, he investigates Joe's death. Friendly, empathetic, and not too bright, he cannot help himself from derailing McAuliffe's interrogation of Dolores. As a result, she is not charged with Joe's death.
Sammy Marchant – The island's dimwitted mailman, he discovers Dolores standing over Vera's dead body. He immediately suspects her of murder and is responsible for the rumors that begin to spread, eventually convincing Dolores to make her confession to the police.
Andy Bissette, Nancy Bannister, and Frank Proulx – The police chief, stenographer, and officer, respectively, that are in the room listening to Dolores's confession. None of their dialogue is included in the novel, which is presented as a transcript of Dolores's statement, but Dolores frequently addresses them.
