Despair
Despair—the complete absence or loss of hope—is a central theme in Out of the Dust. Karen Hesse explores the theme primarily through the reactions Billie Jo and her parents have to the deprivations of the Dust Bowl. As Oklahoma Panhandle farmers, the Kelbys once had a thriving wheat farm that sold a crop in high demand during the First World War. However, the economic shock of the Great Depression, paired with over-farmed land and a long-lasting drought, have left the Kelbys starving and debt-laden. Forced to survive through several miserable years, Billie Jo's parents argue about the efficacy of continuing to plant wheat when they haven't had a decent crop since 1931. The pervasive dust, which comes from eroded soil that is blown off the fields and into people's homes and food, becomes a symbol of the despair that the Kelbys cannot escape. When Ma and Franklin die, Billie Jo's and Bayard's despair grows even more emotionally destructive. Having lost all capacity for seeing a better future on the farm, Billie Jo believes her only option is to run from her problems.
Escape
Escape is another major theme that Hesse explores in Out of Dust. Early in the novel, Billie Jo's friend Livie Killian has a farewell party before she and her family leave the economically and environmentally devastated Great Plains region in the hopes of finding work in California. At the party, Billie Jo reflects on how much she envies Livie and wishes she could take Livie's place on the journey west. Hesse further develops Billie Jo's fantasy of escaping her reality with repeated use of the phrase "out of the dust." This becomes something of a mantra for Billie Jo, who longs to get away from not only the physical dust but the despair that comes with living in the Dust Bowl. Billie Jo finally realizes her ambition when she hops on a boxcar and rides it west to Arizona, witnessing along the way only more poverty and desperation. Even though she has gotten out of the dust, Billie Jo understands that the dust from which she wanted to escape is part of her identity. Ultimately, she returns home with a renewed appreciation for her father and the place she has always known. Having given up her dream of escaping, Billie Jo learns to appreciate her difficult home environment and the adversity that has shaped her.
Poverty
Poverty is another important theme in Out of the Dust. Set in 1934 and 1935, the book takes place at the height of the Great Depression, a worldwide economic depression that took place from 1929 to 1939. During this decade, the ripple effect of a Wall Street stock market crash could be seen in countries across the world as gross domestic product fell, rates of international trade plummeted, and unemployment figures spiked. In the Dust Bowl area, a drop in trade meant lower prices for farmers' crops, which were also more difficult to grow because of the drought and soil erosion. For the Kelbys, not having had a decent wheat crop since 1931 means that the family, by 1934, is "whittled down to the bone" because of lack of food, and they risk taking on debt to plant crops that are unlikely to flourish. As some of the family's neighbors are driven to leave their farms and seek work in other regions, Hess depicts how impoverishment drives a wedge between Billie Jo's parents, who argue over their finances in front of their daughter. In the book, Hesse references the real-life government intervention known as the New Deal, which saw the Roosevelt administration introduce legislation that helped the U.S. economy recover with loans and job programs. However, even with loans granted to help them plant their crops, the Kelbys and other Panhandle farmers need the weather to change as well before they can get out of poverty.
Environmental Crisis
Environmental crisis is a major theme in Out of the Dust. The novel depicts a family struggling with the realities of life in the Dust Bowl, an area of the Great Plains region that was impacted in the 1930s by drought and wind that conspired to erode the topsoil on farmers' fields and create great dust storms. Poor land management was a major contributor to this predicament: With booming demand for American crops during WWI, Great Plains farmers expanded their growing areas, churning up the topsoil to plant nutrient-depleting monocultures; they also brought more grazing animals to the area, and those animals ate the prairie grass that held the topsoil in place. In the book, Hesse depicts the way that people living through this environmental crisis had to deal with the misery of eroded soil finding its way inside their homes and into their already scarce food supply. Even rain, when it did fall, was liable to wash away or drown delicate crops because the dry, hardened fields couldn't absorb the water. Toward the end of the book, however, more gradual and steady rain brings much-needed moisture back to the soil. Bayard also implements new land management strategies, such as the introduction of a pond, to help keep his crops watered and the farm operational.
Grief
Grief—deep sorrow prompted by a major loss, such as someone's death—is another dominant theme in Out of the Dust. Hesse explores the theme most overtly through the deaths of Ma and Franklin, the baby who dies within a day of Ma. By the time of Ma's death, Billie Jo's father had already been grieving the inexorable loss of his livelihood on the farm; with his wife gone, Bayard becomes silent and resentful, looking at his daughter with restrained anger when they cross paths in the house. Billie Jo's grief is not dissimilar: Having burned her hands putting out the fire that eventually killed Ma, Billie Jo stops playing piano—a joyous activity that would be inappropriate in the midst of so much shame and remorse. Billie Jo believes she can escape her grief by traveling by boxcar to the West. However, the journey ends with Billie Jo realizing that only by forgiving herself and her father for their complicity in Ma's and Franklin's deaths can she free learn to accept her misfortune and move on.
Emotional Repression
Alongside grief is the theme of emotional repression. Defined as suppressing one's emotions, usually because they are difficult to process, emotional repression arises as a theme when Billie Jo comments on her parents' bickering. When Bayard frustrates Polly with his stubborn refusal to consider planting crops other than wheat, Polly pushes down her anger and goes outside to put her angry energy toward physical labor. Bayard also tends to repress his emotions. After Polly is burned with kerosene, Bayard cannot handle the pressure of caring for her. Rather than discuss his feelings of shame, remorse, and resentment, he goes on a drinking binge, abandoning his family for a night of dulling his pain with alcohol. Following Polly's death, Bayard lives in the same house as his daughter but never discusses how either of them is feeling. Billie Jo discovers that Mad Dog, though he seems interested in courting her, shares her father's habit of keeping quiet, with neither man knowing how to communicate about difficult emotions. Ultimately, Billie Jo realizes that she is more like her father than she'd wanted to admit. Overcoming her own emotional repression, Billie Jo returns from her brief journey west suddenly able to tell her father that she wants him to seek medical attention for the spots on his face. In a surprising moment of emotional vulnerability, Billie Jo admits that she can't bear the thought of losing her father as well. From this point on, Billie Jo and Bayard begin repairing their relationship through honest communication and renewed trust.
Hope
Hope—the desire for and belief that something good may happen—is another important theme in Out of the Dust. Although much of the novel depicts Billie Jo and her family and neighbors dealing with despair, glimmers of hope help the characters combat the impulse to give up completely. The theme arises when Billie Jo discusses her love of piano playing—a passion she hopes may one day bring her out of and away from the miserable toiling that has become her wheat-farming parents' fate. Billie Jo and her neighbors also experience hope whenever the weather turns to rain. However, the farmers' hopes are just as often dashed by either too much or too little rain. Toward the end of the novel, Billie Jo has undergone the trauma of losing her mother and newborn brother, as well as the trauma of having burnt her hands so badly that her piano playing has been impacted. Nonetheless, she learns to feel hope again with the introduction of Louise to her and her father's lives. She also rediscovers the joy of playing piano, an activity that actually helps her hands return to their usual dexterity.
