Daughters of the Dust: Themes
The film, Daughters of the Dust, written and directed by Julie Dash, recounts the story of the Peazant family. They are members of the Gullah people, a tribe living on a group of islands off the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina in 1902 who are descended from slaves, but have still managed to keep much of their West African culture alive. The story begins as all the members of the Peazant family gather together for one final meal before half the family is to leave the islands and sail north to the mainland in search of a better life. Through this seemingly simple premise, a multitude of themes and stories of individual characters are woven together to create a picture of what life was like for these people and to send a definite message to the viewing audience. All the major characters in the film, including the family elder Nana Peazant, the family outcast Yellow Mary, Eli Peazant, Eli's Wife Eula, and their Unborn Child, have their own stories to tell but all relate to the same major themes of the movie. The major themes in this film include that of acceptance and tolerance, equality, a return to roots, connections back to life in Africa, and finally religion. One of the more dominant themes throughout the film is th
Such equality is almost never seen and makes this a very interesting theme contained within the film. By this time, Eli has reached his lowest and angriest point, taking up a large piece of wood and smashing the bottle tree again and again. The climax of Eli's story nears after he sees the ghostly image of his Unborn Child after an altercation with his cousin. The connections back to Africa are told both very directly through narration of the stories of the Ebu People and narration by both Nana Peazant and the Unborn Child, and quite abstractly through the use of flashback sequences as well as music, color, and other audio and visual elements. The major themes of this movie, and the ones that will be concentrated upon most here, are the dual themes of connections back to Africa, and the need for the characters to get back in touch with their roots. As the volume of the music and the narration continue to increase, he begins to bathe the statue with water, seeming to nurture and take care of this symbol of his people, just as he must do for his family. He slowly approaches her and pleads with her in a voice that already shows signs of desperation to tell him who had raped her and whose child it was she was carrying saying, "Who's done this thing to us?" She refuses, assuring him that, "No good can come from knowing. Once he had been returned to his roots, all the problems he had with the old ways and with his wife simply melted away. When characters speak to each other, they are always on the same level, showing that no one member of their family is more important than any other. Now, like Nana Peazant, he embraced the heritage that before he was so eager to escape from. The tree represents the old African faith and the memory of the old souls which had always helped Eli before, but which he now no longer believes in. These two major themes are very important to all the characters concerned, but the attention here will be focused on how these themes are related to the story of Eli Peazant. As they run through the graveyard, the characters seem to move in slow motion, suggesting time distortion. The African music once again begins to build as Eli slowly approaches the river. The ribbon she wears in her hair is also a connection back to Africa as well as the times of slavery because it is blue in color, the same color as the indigo from the plantations where their ancestors once toiled.
Common topics in this essay:
Unborn Child,
Nana Peazant,
Nana Christian,
West African,
Africa Eli,
Yellow Mary,
Peazant Christianity,
Wanderer African,
Soon Eli,
Julie Dash,
unborn child,
nana peazant,
peazant family,
acceptance tolerance,
major themes,
return roots,
bottle tree,
eli peazant,
connections africa,
move mainland,
bottle tree eli,
story eli peazant,
image unborn child,
theme returning roots,
peazant unborn child,
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Acceptance Essays
