In Out of the Dust, apples symbolize life. Their growth, or lack thereof, parallels Billie Jo’s own vitality. Apples appear in the story because Billie Jo’s mother plants apple trees. Even though the apple trees require extra resources, Billie Jo’s mother carefully tends to them and makes sure they survive, just as she does for Billie Jo herself. When Billie Jo’s mother is severely injured in a fire, the apples start to wither and die, suggesting they might signify her life force rather than Billie Jo’s. This notion is seemingly solidified when the last apple falls off the tree on the same day Billie Jo’s mother dies. However, the apples do not disappear forever. At the end of the novel, the apple trees come back as the climate starts to stabilize, and Louise brings apples over to Billie Jo’s house. The return of the apples reinforces the idea that they are related to Billie Jo’s vitality because, at this point in the novel, she is starting to feel alive again. Notably, her vitality—and thus the apples—is also linked to a maternal presence, suggesting that mother figures can be uniquely nurturing and life-sustaining in children’s lives.
Apples Quotes in Out of the Dust
Daddy named me Billie Jo.
He wanted a boy.
Instead,
he got a long-legged girl
with a wide mouth
and cheekbones like bicycle handles.
He got a redheaded, freckle-faced, narrow-hipped girl
with a fondness for apples
and a hunger for playing fierce piano.
But Ma says, “Can’t you see
what’s happening, Bayard?
The wheat’s not meant to be here.”
And Daddy says,
“What about those apple trees of yours, Pol?
You think they are?
Nothing needs more to drink than those two.
But you wouldn’t hear of leveling your apples,
would you?
But the grasshoppers ate every leaf,
they ate every piece of fruit.
Nothing left but a couple apple cores,
hanging from Ma’s trees.
I couldn’t tell her,
couldn’t bring myself to say
her apples were gone.
I never had a chance.
Ma died that day
giving birth to my brother.
My father’s digging his own grave,
he calls it a pond,
but I know what he’s up to.
