Student Question
What is the significance of the "Piano, my silent mother" quote in Out of the Dust?
Quick answer:
The quote "Piano, my silent mother" in Out of the Dust symbolizes the piano as a comforting legacy from Billie Jo's mother, embodying her love and talent for music. After her mother's tragic death and her own injury, Billie Jo initially views the piano as a painful reminder. However, a dream reveals it as a spiritual connection, marking the start of her emotional healing and reconciliation with her past.
In this short entry of her diary, "Summer, 1935," Billie Jo records a dream she has had in which she recognizes that her mother has left behind something of herself in her piano. The piano, a symbol of her mother, comforts Billie Jo.
Early in her life, Billie Jo takes on her mother's talent and becomes a skilled performer in her own right. But, after the fire in their house and Billie Jo's tragic mistake with the kerosene, Billie Jo cannot emotionally recover from the terrible death of her mother and her baby brother. Her burned hands serve only to remind her of the loss of her beloved mother while she becomes alienated from her father, whom she cannot forgive for leaving the kerosene her mother mistook for water by the stove.
Because the piano has been a loving and emotional connection between her mother and her father and she...
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is also unable to play it for a long time, having burned her hands so badly in trying to save her mother, at first Billie Jo perceives the piano as a reminder of what she has lost. But, in her diary entry, Billie Jo writes of her dream. In this dream she understands that the piano is her mother's legacy. There is something spiritual that her mother has left behind: the love of music and talent that Billie Jo and she share. She has not been totally abandoned, after all.
Uncomplaining/ you accept/ the cover to your keys/ and still/ you make room/ for all that I /place there/ we close our eyes/ and together find that stillness/ like a pond
The mention of the pond is significant, too, since her father has dug a pond to hold the rain when it comes. Then, he can use this water in times of drought and perhaps save his crops. The dream about the piano marks the beginning of Billie Jo's healing.
"I may look like Daddy, but I have my mother's hands. Piano hands, Ma called them, sneaking a look at them any chance she got. A piano is a grand thing," I say.