She's Come Undone

I believe a big truth in the novel She's Come Undone is that through many tragic circumstances, Dolores lost her sense of identity. It shocked me when all of a sudden she was sent to a mental institution for 7 years. There didn't seem to be anything mentally wrong with her, she was just completely lost in grief and misunderstanding of the things that had happened to her. If she had a better support system, such as a stable family or close friends, maybe she wouldn't have struggled so much with the tragedies thrown at her. She turned to food to comfort herself and because of that lost her self-confidence and because of that felt she was not capable of being loved. It was a downward spiral for her. We see at the end though that she slowly begins finding herself again. She allows herself to grow close to Thayer. I interpreted the ending scene as one of her accepting her new life, finally becoming maybe not happy but content. It demonstrated how the little things are the most spectacular. Dolores grew to appreciate that, and that was one more baby step towards her becoming well again.