Out of the Dust

Besides the Kelby home and property, only a few micro-settings appear in the novel: the school, the Palace and other small theaters, the boxcar. What emotions do each of these micro-settings consistently connote? How does each location’s emotional impact compare to the emotions associated with Billie Jo’s home and farm? Use specific details to convey your thoughts regarding each micro-setting.

Billie Jo’s narrative perspective is intimate but limited to her observations, assumptions, and ideas. The reader must use inference skills to speculate on what other characters think and feel. Choose a secondary character and one or several actions or lines associated with that character. Convey the situation, then speculate on how that character must feel or what they think in that moment. Possibilities to consider might be Arley’s asking Billie Jo to keep playing piano, Miss Freeland crying at graduation, Mad Dog visiting after the duster, or Louise bringing apples to the farm.

Out of the Dust takes place over the course of eight consecutive seasons of the year. What, if any, connections exist between the season of the year and the plot events taking place within it? Why is it important to tell this story over the course of two years? Support your thoughts with details and examples from a variety of places in the text.

The story includes several characters who travel seeking better opportunities: Livie’s family, the boy who accepts a haircut and food, the migrant family in the school, and the man who boards Billie Jo’s boxcar. How do those characters collectively paint a picture of the conflict many Americans faced in the 1930s? Of the migrants listed or other migrants in the story, which one or ones is/are most influential to Billie Jo’s development and character arc? Discuss these ideas using an array of details and support from the novel.

People who lived in places like the Panhandle of Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl could not escape the dust; it stuck close during every task, meal, trip, and chore. In this regard, what does the dust in Billie Jo’s story symbolize? What does she mean when she claims that she “can’t get out of something that’s inside” her (205)? Use details and examples from additional places in the narrative to effectively explain your thoughts.

Reread Miss Freeland’s lesson in “The Path of Our Sorrow” (83-84). Are the components of the Kelbys’ external struggles with the land (drought, poor harvests, dust storms, wind, rabbits, grasshoppers) more representative of the conflict type Man Versus Nature or the conflict type Man Versus Man? Explain your rationale using lines from Miss Freeland’s lesson as well as other lines throughout the novel to prove your points.

What connections or parallels exist between Billie Jo’s restlessness and her piano playing skills? How are either or both connected to her decision to leave home? To return? In the future of Out of the Dust, do you foresee Billie Jo leaving home or staying for good? Explain your thoughts using character details and inferences from the text.

How does the novel support the idea that hard work leads to happiness and fulfillment? In what ways does the novel defy that notion? Consider examples to support your rationales from a variety of sections of the story.