History Literature / UnderTheDome

** Scarecrow Joe looks online to see conspiracy theories about the dome, with the most popular being that it's a government experiment gone wrong--"Just like that movie, [[Film/TheMist ''The Mist.'']]"

** Scarecrow Joe looks online to see conspiracy theories about the dome, with the most popular being that it's a government experiment gone wrong--"Just like that movie, [[Film/TheMist ''The Mist.'']]

* ShoutOut: Cox mentions a couple of times that one of the female police officers comes highly recommended by Literature/JackReacher.

* HideYourLesbians: The relationship between Dodie Sanders and Sammy Bushey is referred to in conversation and in Dodie's thoughts as "you-know" and as "kid stuff" that they should have grown out of by now. Sammy has been married and has a baby, but it's also implied that many people in town know she has inclinations towards the other team; Dodie mentally equates her lesbian experiences with other immature and possibly immoral things she has a weakness for, such as smoking weed. The whole relationship is quickly obscured when Dodie is killed very early on. [[spoiler:Sammy later kills herself, which could make this a case of BuryYourGays if almost ''everyone'' in the town didn't also eventually die]].

** Phil "Chef" Bushey is a human version of [[TheLordOfTheRings Gollum]]. Meth is his One Ring.

* BittersweetEnding: The dome is gone and many townspeople survive but many people also dead and many residence building also crushed.

* ScreamingWarrior: [[spoiler: Chef. ''[[CrowningMomentOfFunny "SELAH, MOTHERFUCKERS!"]]]]''

** The scary thing for [[CanadaEh Torontonian]] readers is how prescient the book seems when comparing Big Jim Rennie to Rob Ford.

* ShoutOut: Cox mentions a couple of times that one of the female police officers comes highly recommended by JackReacher.

** This has more to do with the distinction between conservative and Republican. Julia Shumway is portrayed as conservative in a number of ways (one humorous example is her thought on what her historical hero's reaction would be to a world where civilians were required by law to pick up after their pet's poo), and she admits to having voted for Rennie when he was "saner" because she liked what he campaigned on. It's only when he shows his true colors as a power-hungry sociopath that she starts expressing more liberal misgivings about the abuses of power going on.

* TheFundamentalist: Lester Coggins, pastor of the Christ the Holy Redeemer church. When you consider other characters like this in Creator/StephenKing novels (like Mrs. Carmody of ''TheMist'' or Margaret White of ''{{Carrie}}''), you might think he'd end up being a problem for the more reasonable inhabitants of Chester's Mill. [[spoiler: He turns out to be a RedHerring, though, as he gets killed by Big Jim less than a third of the way through the book, when he tells Jim he feels that he must confess to the congregation that they've been running a meth lab.]]

* TakeThat: Georgia Roux snarks on Sammy for being an avid reader of Creator/NoraRoberts and StephenieMeyer (authors that King ''[[{{Hatedom}} really hates]]'') and says that ''Literature/HarryPotter'' rules (King loves the series). However, this is halfway to TakeThatMe, because Georgia Roux is clearly not a nice person.

* ChekhovsGunman: [[spoiler: Sam Verdreaux, the town drunk. At the end of the story, Sam comes up with up with the plan to get Barbie and Julie to the dome-generating box, sacrificing his life to do so.]]

* InvisibleToNormals: In a few short sections set from the viewpoint of Julia Shumway's corgi, it's stated that dogs are able to hear the voices of the dead due to their extra-sensitive hearing. A random ghost points the dog to the VADER file (which had fallen behind a couch, unbeknownst to anyone), which leads to Andrea Ginnell finding the file and finally finding out about Rennie's corrupt side businesses.

* AintTooProudToBeg: [[spoiler:After everything else failed, Julie goes to the box generating the Dome, and begs one of the aliens to let them live. It works.]]

* AlmostOutOfOxygen: [[spoiler:A giant fire is consuming the entire town and, ]]due to the fact that there is very little oxygen intake into the dome, it becomes very hard to breathe.

* ObviouslyEvil: Though he is deceitful and manipulative to an unforeseeable degree, it is amazing how often people who have pretty much known [[spoiler: "Big Jim"]] their whole lives can watch him sneer and laugh at the misfortunes of others and the chaos surrounding them and not be more than quietly disgusted for the most part.

* GoodFeelsGood: Junior of all people experiences this, when he rescues the Appleton children. As a consequence, [[spoiler:protecting them even becomes his final goal in life (after killing Barbie and his dad, that is) - although by the time he decides on this, he's gone [[AxCrazy completely mad]] and the safest place for the children would be as far away from Junior as possible.]]

* {{Jerkass}}: The youths who have been recruited as temporary police officers — Frankie, Junior, Georgia, Mel, and Carter.

** One character gives a name to some of the creepy stuff happening inside the Dome - [[Literature/TheDeadZone "the dead zone".]] [[LampshadeHanging He doesn't like the sound of it.]]
* NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead: [[spoiler:Subverted by Rennie when Junior dies. Whe Carter says that he was a good guy, Rennie responds: "No he wasn't. But he was my son and I loved him".]]

The book got adapted into a [[Series/UnderTheDome TV series]] for Creator/{{CBS}} by King and Creator/BrianKVaughan. '''Please add series tropes to that page.'''

!!The novel contains examples of the following:

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Rather amazingly for anyone who has read ''Literature/TheStand'', Colonel Cox and the rest of the military and federal government. There's some habitual, knee-jerk secrecy, but despite some dark, early intimations of government involvement with the dome, everyone on the outside really is trying their damndest to save Chesster's Mill. They ''fail'', of course, but not for lack of effort or even intellect.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Rather amazingly for anyone who has read TheStand, Colonel Cox and the rest of the military and federal government. There's some habitual, knee-jerk secrecy, but despite some dark, early intimations of government involvement with the dome, everyone on the outside really is trying their damndest to save Chesster's Mill. They ''fail'', of course, but not for lack of effort or even intellect.