Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Bleak, But Hopeful
Billie Jo's story is pretty dark—there's no escaping that. It's filled with death, destruction, hardship, loss, and of course, dust. The poetic style of the book is a big help in establishing the story's emotional attitude, and sometimes Hesse uses vivid description to capture the plot's darkness—like when she writes:
Heaven's shadow crept across the plains, / a black cloud, / big and silent as Montana, / boiling on the horizon and barreling toward us. (85.5)
Check out her use of alliteration—a.k.a. repeated consonant sounds—in this passage. The numerous b words rumble across the lines like an approaching dust storm, creating a dark, foreboding tone. If you read it out loud, you can practically feel the storm coming in your body.
Nonetheless, the fact that Billie Jo and her dad emerge from tragedy after tragedy points us to a message of hope in the midst of the bleakness. Take a look at Billie Jo's "Thanksgiving List," where she describes:
The sound of rain / Daddy's hole staying full of water / as the windmill turns, / the smell of green, / of damp earth, / of hope returning to our farm. (108.1)
Unlike the threatening description of the dust storm, the book draws to a close with light, peaceful images like these—rain, green, hope, the windmill moving—that demonstrate how far the family has come.