Under the Dome

Book Details & Major Themes

Prolific horror author Stephen King published his 58th book, Under the Dome, in 2009. Like many of his books, it is set in a small town in Maine and follows the town's residents after a mysterious Dome—invisible, electrified, and impenetrable—descends over it. As they struggle to cope with this situation, the themes of Corruption and Control, Prophecy and Premonition, and The Dissolution of Democracy emerge.

Film Adaptation

In 2013, Under the Dome was adapted into a miniseries that aired on CBS. The series starred Mike Vogel as Dale "Barbie" Barbara and Rachelle Lefevre as Julia Shumway.

This guide refers to the 2010 Gallery Books paperback edition.

Content Warning

The source material and this guide discuss sexual assault, graphic violence, addiction, suicidal ideation, sexism, and anti-LGBTQ+ bias.

Plot Summary

The events in the lengthy novel occur between the dates of October 21 and October 28, in an unnamed year. When the Dome descends on Chester’s Mill, chaos immediately ensues: a small aircraft is destroyed; a woodchuck is cut in half; a local woman loses a hand. It takes little time for the people of The Mill to figure out that they are trapped, fully cut off from the outside world. Even the air that they breathe slowly becomes stagnant, as fresh air can penetrate just barely.

Dale Barbara is looking to leave Chester’s Mill after a confrontation with Junior Rennie and his friends, but Second Selectman "Big Jim" Rennie is seeking to consolidate his firm grip on power over what he sees as his town. The two men are already at odds over the confrontation—Junior is Rennie’s son, of course—and Rennie takes every opportunity to besmirch Barbie’s reputation.

Rennie is deeply corrupt, having misappropriated town funds and paid off officials to make irregularities disappear. He has also built a thriving methamphetamine lab on the grounds of evangelical radio station WCIK, where the Chef (Phil Bushey) cooks up product to be sold all over the Eastern seaboard. Rennie works with the collusion of First Selectman, Andy Sanders, and Reverend Coggins of the evangelical church. When Coggins confronts Rennie about their illegal activities, taking the Dome as a sign from God to confess, Rennie bludgeons him to death with a gold-plated baseball souvenir.

Meanwhile, Junior, has also committed murder—an act linked to the incident with Barbie—when the Dome first descends. He witnesses his father’s brutal performance and says he will help dispose of the body. He has already stashed his two victims in the pantry of his first victim’s house, so it should be no problem. Rennie decides that he will pin the crimes on Barbie, which should be easy because Barbie is already an outsider. The townspeople are fearful, even desperate, and Barbie is not one of them. Junior conveniently finds Barbie’s old dog tags—he is an Iraq War veteran—and plants them in the hand of one of the victims.

Yet Barbie is not without his share of support. He is called back to duty by the president of the United States, his rank is elevated, and he is tasked with taking over the martial law established in The Mill. The local newspaper editor, Julia Shumway, and some other townsfolk also support Barbie and are intent on resisting Rennie’s power. Rusty Everett, the physician’s assistant at the local hospital, his wife, Linda, and her police-officer colleague, Jackie Wettington, along with Reverend Piper Libby of the local Congregational church and a group of clever teens, understand that Barbie, not Rennie, is working for the greater good.

Rennie has amassed what amounts to an army of untrained cops, including Junior and some of his hypermasculine buddies, to institute a reign of terror and autocratic control rather than to preserve the civic order. He finally has Barbie arrested, though Barbie’s associates help free him—but only just in time. As Junior comes to kill him in his cell, Barbie’s friends arrive, and Jackie shoots Junior before he can fire his weapon.

Meanwhile, the Chef has been joined by Andy Sanders in his meth-induced paranoia and visions of apocalypse. Sanders has lost both his wife and his daughter in the chaos of the Dome isolation, and he has nothing left to lose. While Rennie has decided to shut down the drug operation—now that they are cut off, the town needs the propane tanks that fuel the endeavor—Chef has no intention of relinquishing his tanks or his drugs. He and Sanders prepare for a confrontation.

Eventually, the brave teen explorers and their adult allies discover that the Dome is generated by alien forces, which explains the many prophecies, premonitions, and visions experienced by the people of The Mill and the failure of the military to take down the Dome with missile strikes and high-powered acid. A Visitors Day is organized for family members of the trapped townspeople to gather at the Dome, with the hope that the publicity will shame Rennie into relinquishing his control. The stress of the Dome weighs heavily on the residents, and there are many more deaths in town, some by suicide.

Barbie and his cohort investigate the alien box that generates the Dome. It reveals eerie alien faces who seem to be laughing at the humans, and Barbie determines that they are all trapped in a cruel experiment. While the aliens show no signs of relenting or releasing their subjects, the town’s ultimate demise comes about due to explicitly human action. On Visitors Day, Rennie’s men invade the WCIK radio station, intending to take down the Chef, but he and Sanders push the button that detonates the Chef’s makeshift bomb. The explosion within the enclosed area of the Dome destroys almost all the remaining residents of Chester’s Mill. Only when Julia and Barbie beg the aliens for mercy do they release the Dome, allowing fresh air to flow in to greet the two dozen or so survivors of the town’s 2,000 original residents.