Antagonist

Character Role Analysis

The Dust

Wait, what? The dust is a character? You better believe it is. Out of the Dust is a classic "person versus nature" story, the kind of tale where the environment seems to step on every attempt the characters make to escape their difficult position.

If the antagonist is typically defined as the character who wants to keep the protagonist from getting what he or she wants, the dust storms do this in spades. The dust destroys Daddy's every attempt to bring the farm back to life, blows through people's homes, and in the case of Pete Guymon, even takes people's lives. While the dust storms themselves don't promise to end by the conclusion of the book, Billie Jo and her father nonetheless beat them by choosing to rise above the tragedy of their circumstances.