Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Out of the Dust, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Nature, Survival, and the Dust Bowl
Poverty, Charity, and Community
Coming of Age
Family and Forgiveness
Summary
Analysis
Billie Jo’s mother has strict rules about how to set the table. Billie Jo must place plates and glasses upside down and cover the silverware with napkins. Once dinner is served, the family turns the plates over and shakes the dust of the napkins. Dinner is always lively, as Billie Jo’s father compliments the food. Everyone knows the food is not as good as he says, but it helps keep morale high.
The rules about properly setting the table are important because the family wants to limit the amount of dust they inhale. As the novel will later explain, inhaling too must dust can lead to illness and death—not to mention the obvious negative impacts on the food’s taste and texture.
Themes
Recently, Billie Jo heard from Livie Killian. Apparently, her family could not find work out west and are having a hard time getting food. Livie’s 15-year-old brother, Reuben, went out on his own to find work, but no one has heard from him yet. Billie Jo hopes he is okay and is glad her family at least has something to eat, even if it is not high quality. She worries about what will happen if she and her family end up in a similar circumstance once the baby arrives.
Here, Billie Jo learns she was wrong to be jealous of Livie and her family. As it turns out, conditions out west are no better than they are in the Panhandle—at least not for migrants. Meanwhile, Billie Jo’s uncertainty about her family’s situation now sits in stark contrast to the relative surplus that occurred around the time of her own birth.
Themes
