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Sam Pickles
Dolly is Sam’s wife and the mother of Rose, Ted, and Chub. She’s an alcoholic who constantly struggles with the pain of her past and her longing to travel and experience a more exciting lifestyle. As the years go by, she feels more and more strongly that her best days are behind her, and the onset of her old age drives her to drink more than ever. Her relationship with Sam becomes more strained after he loses his hand, and she often dates other men despite still loving him. Her daughter Rose despises her for drinking and robbing her of her childhood, as a young Rose would often have to carry her drunken mother back home from bars and pubs. Dolly grows to resent Rose as well, but the two of them eventually come to an understanding after Dolly reveals that she comes from an incestuous relationship that brought about her distrust of other women (her sister is also her mother). Dolly’s behavior becomes much less extreme after making peace with Rose, though she still drinks often and keeps her coarse and bitter sense of humor, which she mostly uses to entertain herself. Although Dolly resents Oriel for making her feel like an inadequate mother in comparison for most of the novel, she gradually comes to embrace Oriel and the rest of the Lamb family, confirming Rose’s belief that people can change. Dolly is a tragic figure, but she is often comical as well.
Dolly Pickles Quotes in Cloudstreet
The Cloudstreet quotes below are all either spoken by Dolly Pickles or refer to Dolly Pickles. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3 Quotes
It’s just them in this vast indoors and though there’s a war on and people are coming home with bits of them removed, and though families are still getting telegrams and waiting by the wireless, women walking buggered and beatenlooking with infants in the parks, the Pickleses can’t help but feel that all that is incidental. They have no money and this great continent of a house doesn’t belong to them. They’re lost.
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Chapter 5 Quotes
Rose. People are… who they are.
Then they should change! People should do things for themselves, not wait for everyone else to change things for em!
You can’t beat your luck, love.
No, you have to be your luck. There’s nothin else, there’s just you.
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Chapter 10 Quotes
Rose remembered the way she took command of a situation in a dozen crises—when Dolly was sick, when she herself was hurt, and she couldn’t think why the very strength of that woman’s actions felt so unforgivable. Her kindness was scalding, her protection acidic. Maybe it’s just me, thought Rose, maybe I can’t take it from her because my mother never gave it to me. What a proud bitch I am. But dammit, why does she always have to be right and the one who’s strong and the one who makes it straight, the one people come to? Why do I still dislike her, because she’s so totally trustworthy?
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Dolly Pickles Character Timeline in Cloudstreet
The timeline below shows where the character Dolly Pickles appears in Cloudstreet. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...taken to the hospital, Rose rushes home to the pub from school to fetch her mother, Dolly Pickles. Rose hears no reply when she knocks on Dolly’s door, but she hears...
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Dolly Pickles attracts some attention from strangers on her way to the hospital; she relishes the...
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Dolly continues to see the Catalina pilot until Sam finally comes home from the hospital. She...
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Chapter 3
...all on gambling, as he believes that the Shifty Shadow is on his side now. Dolly is furious with him for making the family poor again, and she’s still struggling to...
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The Lambs arrive at Number One, Cloud Street. Lester awkwardly introduces himself to Dolly at the front door, and it isn’t long before all eight of the Lambs are...
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...builds between them. There’s only one bathroom to share among the twelve of them, and Dolly begins to resent Oriel for seeming bossy and constantly working. Oriel has her children help...
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The Lambs soon open a shop in the front room. Dolly comes down to see them set it up, and it’s difficult for her to hide...
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...life; she balks at the idea that she could live a despondent, inactive life like Dolly Pickles. Lester knows that there have been times when he’s thought it would have been...
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...hard work and respects them for it despite how their busy presence irritates him and Dolly. But he knows that he isn’t cut out for a life of hard work; he...
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Dolly finds herself feeling bitter and angry as winter comes. With the house unusually quiet, she...
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Chapter 4
...begins to worry Rose, who doesn’t like the idea of being stuck with her angry mother for much longer. But one day after school, Rose comes home to find her father...
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...fortune, and Sam even buys gifts for his children like it’s an early Christmas. Even Dolly warms up to him, though she still often sits alone in the dark after they...
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...doesn’t return; Oriel grows more and more tense. Meanwhile, Rose tries unsuccessfully to fetch her mother from the pub where she’s been drinking. But Dolly would much rather stay and get...
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...is quiet when Sam and Lester finally return that night. Rose has already brought home Dolly, who’s asleep on the bed. Rose shoots an angry glare at her father as he...
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On Guy Fawkes night, Oriel invites Dolly and the rest of the Pickles family to join the Lambs in their half of...
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...a fully grown woman, especially as she’s taught herself to cook for herself and her brothers—Dolly is always too drunk to cook and Sam often gets home from work late. Rose...
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Drunk and exhausted, Dolly walks along the railway tracks one night and wishes she could fall asleep on the...
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...donates it to the Lambs to express his thanks for them helping his wife, but Dolly herself decides never to speak to Oriel again.
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Chapter 5
...the images of starving people in concentration camps. However, Rose takes spiteful pleasure in making Dolly angry over her appearance, and she takes every opportunity to pour alcohol she finds down...
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Dolly feels and sees herself getting older, becoming increasingly bitter and harsh as she loses her...
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...to be alive is the cruelest joke, and he curses his terrible luck. One morning, Dolly and Rose get into an argument about how Rose might need to quit school because...
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...he’s too cowardly to strike back at G. M. Clay for having an affair with Dolly. But he realizes that what he’s feeling is loss, not anger. He still loves his...
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...notice Oriel crying “like a person,” and it’s hard to watch as Fish ignores his mother. Exhausted from all these emotions, Rose goes down to the kitchen and starts looking for...
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Dolly quietly tends to her wounds, which G. M. Clay inflicted before he left town. Rose...
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...and Rose enjoys their company despite the fact that they remind her a bit of Dolly. Rose is proud to be earning a salary, she begins to put on some weight,...
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...begins having sex with more and more young women, to the anger of his jealous mother and the relative indifference of the other Pickleses. Beryl Lee moves into the Lamb half...
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Chapter 7
A week after the wedding, Sam Pickles comes home bloodied and bruised. He explains to Dolly that he owes quite a bit of money to a man from the union, and...
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Lester walks into the Pickles kitchen and lets Dolly know that Sam is lying low and safe. He tells her to send the debt...
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...money anyway, and he’d feel too guilty to tell Sam no after what happened with Dolly.
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...goes.” Before long, Rose looks outside and notices Lester arriving in the truck, without Sam. Dolly meets him on the front porch and he tells her that they’re all probably going...
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...for so long. Beryl tells Lester that she knows about what happened between him and Dolly. Lester furiously tries to deny that Beryl knows anything about it, but it’s no use....
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...break. When he comes home with his pockets full of cash, it feels like he, Dolly, and Rose are fresh new people for a moment. Oriel invites the Pickleses over to...
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Chapter 8
...is young enough to cry in a voice like that, but she shrugs it off. Dolly walks in and shows Rose a postcard from Ted, telling her that he lives in...
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...feels a steely, invincible determination as she breaks the news to her parents, not allowing Dolly’s bitter pessimism to put a damper on what she’s feeling.
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...At the raucous afterparty later on, Quick and Rose watch in astonishment as Oriel approaches Dolly and offers to dance with her. From the look on Oriel’s face, “something massive has...
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Chapter 9
...this round of bad luck is stronger than any he can remember. Later that morning, Dolly falls down a flight of stairs and breaks her leg. Oriel is out in her...
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...doesn’t want Quick or her father to know how much she’s hurting. Back at Cloudstreet, Dolly is devastated by the news of Ted’s death, and the shadows in the library dance.
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...he knows and accepts that his chaotic life is governed by the whims of luck. Dolly is almost never home anymore, but he doesn’t have the heart to get angry with...
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...day, and she’s angry to learn that he’s here to enlist her help in finding Dolly, who’s been missing for a few days. Rose refuses, reminding her father of how Dolly...
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...her bed later, Rose flashes back to noises she heard behind the door of her mother’s room, way back when they lived in Joel’s pub. She realizes with disgust that Dolly...
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As Dolly’s drunk yelling echoes through Cloudstreet, Rose furiously tells Quick that she doesn’t want to go...
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Rose visits Cloudstreet the next morning and waits around the house until Dolly wakes up. Rose feels strangely timid and unprepared this time, as if most of her...
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Gradually, things start getting better. Rose continues to visit Dolly every day or two, and she realizes that her mother is often just cursing and...
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...that “the ladies won’t like” her new baby. Rose and Quick assume he’s talking about Dolly and Oriel. Dolly visits Sam at the train station on his way home from work.
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...the noise and bustle of the big house, and she still enjoys spending time with Dolly. Quick seems happy as well, though he’s still troubled by the police’s lack of progress...
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...tensely watch while Fish sings and babbles. The birth goes off without a hitch, and Dolly is a grandmother. Quick suggests that they call the newborn boy Harry, to Rose’s laughing...
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Chapter 10
...baby as well, and Pansy gets pregnant again very soon afterwards, to Oriel’s silent disapproval. Dolly starts inviting bingo friends over on some nights and Rose starts helping in the shop,...
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...selling the place and using the money to retire somewhere nice, but he doesn’t tell Dolly about the idea yet.
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One morning, Dolly is out of bed earlier than Sam for a change. She feeds magpies in the...
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...it was before. She figures that they’ve all made their mark on Cloudstreet, and even Dolly admits that the house has a hold on them now. Sam decides to stay, and...
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...time later, in a backyard that’s no longer split in half by a tin fence, Dolly helps Oriel Lamb pack up her tent for good. Both of them carry it inside...
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