Why Does Life Have To Be So Tough?

An essay about the books Out Of The Dust and The Odyssey.

Billie Jo drank her disgusting, dirt-filled milk, and swallowed it painfully. Billie Jo is in the book Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse. She lives in the panhandle of Oklahoma and lives in the time of the Dust Bowl.   In another book, The Odyssey, by Homer, Odysseus finishes the Trojan War and heads home to Ithaca. It takes 20 years for him to get home. Both characters’ lives have been worse at the end because of their families, lost friends, and the fights through natural disasters.

   Family is one reason why Billie Jo’s and Odysseus’ live changed for the worst. Billie Jo’s mom dies because of a burning accident. She died because she started to burn up because a flaming can of kerosene touched her, which her husband put next to her. The night she was giving birth to her son, Billie Jo’s dad took all the money and went to go drink beer and wine, while his wife was begging for water. Billie Jo and her dad’s relationship quickly grew distant and awkward after the night her mom and her brother died.  At the end of the story, her dad gets a girlfriend who she enjoys a great deal. Even though Billie Jo gets a new lady in her life and she has a better relationship with her dad after the accident, she still misses her mother immensely, and she will never get her relationship back with her dad like it was before. In addition, Odysseus spent 20 years away from his family. Odysseus never got to see his son grown up and never really knew him. After the long journey home, Odysseus sees his son for the first time since his son, Telemachus, was a baby. This means that it must’ve been extremely uncomfortable for him since he is practically calling a stranger his son. Billie Jo’s life has been worse because her mom died and she misses her tremendously, and Odysseus’ life has changed for the worse because he missed seeing Telemachus, his son, grow up.

   Furthermore, both Odysseus and Billie Jo lost people around them. Billie Jo had a best friend, named Livie.  Livie and her family moved away because of the dust. She moved west to start a new life, but left BIllie Jo behind. Secondly, Odysseus lost multiple people in his life. Odysseus fought in the Trojan War and lost many people in his life. He also lost many of his friends during the book with Polyphemus, the cyclops. Odysseus and his men got trapped in a cave with Polyphemus. Polyphemus ate multiple people in that book. Also, the book with Scylla feasted upon six of Odysseus’ men. Scylla was a dog with six heads and Odysseus’ boat had to sail past Scylla to get away from Charybdis. The vicious dog could only eat one person per head. Odysseus also lost many men in the final battle and countless other times. Billie Jo lost a best friend which is hard during something so tragic as the Dust Bowl, and Odysseus lost many men in his ship crew.

   Lastly, their lives changed for the worst because of natural disasters. Billie Jo had to survive the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl was a decade with rarely any rain. The dust storms were huge clouds of dust that went by. In fact, the dust was everywhere and it was almost black. The people who lived in the Dust Bowl had to wear cloth masks to protect themselves from inhaling the dust. Unlike the dust, the crops disappeared, so the people were hungry often. At one moment, multitudinous amounts of jackrabbits came by and ate everything that was potentially growing. That’s how many humans got their meat. Billie Jo’s life had changed for the worst because after the Dust Bowl, it still took a long time for crops to grow. Also, many people she knew died of pneumonia or left the town. Plus, Odysseus’ life was slightly changed for the worst because of Zeus wrecking his boat. Even though this isn’t technically a natural disaster, the people who do not know the greek mythology, would easily say that this is considered a natural disaster. Since it took place on the water with a thunderstorm. Odysseus made Zeus mad, so Zeus wrecked his boat and almost drowned him. This made his life worse because the memory of nearly being killed by a god made him feel terrible. He’ll get that horrible regret feeling of making him so mad, that his ship got destroyed. He has to live with that memory for the rest of his life. Billie Jo’s town’s crops have failed so her dad’s economic choices are limited while Odysseus has to live with the rest of his life regretting making Zeus mad because Zeus might hardly ever do something kind to Odysseus again.

   In conclusion, Odysseus’ and Billie Jo’s lives were changed for the worst. What I learned from these books is that even if life gets me down, I can either run from or it face it.