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
A man named Haydon P. Nye, whom Billie Jo knows from her time playing the piano, dies in the middle of January. Billie Jo reads a newspaper article about his life, which says that when he first arrived in the Panhandle, there were green fields for as far as the eye could see. Over the course of his life, farmers moved all around him and turned the land into fields of wheat. Additionally, railroads were built in the area, and the development of civilization erased the wild horses and buffalo. Some years, Haydon watched grasshoppers and the sun destroy his crops. However, other years brought plenty of rain and Haydon’s crops thrived. The community buried Haydon Nye on his homestead. Billie Jo wonders if someone will plant wheat on his grave, where the buffalo once roamed.
Like the artwork Billie Jo examined earlier in the novel, the newspaper article about Haydon P. Nye is a reminder of a past Billie Jo never got to experience. For much of Billie Jo’s life, the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl have sucked the life out of the Panhandle. Although it was clearly possible to survive in the region during Nye’s day, it is unclear whether the same will be true in the future. Since the region became a “civilized” place, the natural world around it has fallen apart and there is no promise that it will come back.
Themes
