In The Seven Daughters of Dupree, Nikesha Elise Williams argues that historical violence is a psychological burden that can pass through a family’s bloodline like a form of inheritance. This is embodied by the conceit surrounding the family “curse,” in which all the Dupree women can only successfully carry pregnancies to term if the child is born female. The nature of the curse speaks to a systemic bias against Black women, suggesting that it is a curse to only bear Black daughters because their lives are significantly more precarious than any other ethnic group or gender. The violent death of Sarah(?) is a testament to this assertion, as it sets a precedent for the precarity that all her descendants will inherit. As the novel progresses, the dilemmas that define each generation of the matrilineal Dupree family underscore the struggle to adapt or resist the idea of precarity.

Jubi is the first person to try to break away from her inheritance by using her light complexion to pass as a white woman in society. Her attempt is partly successfully as she manages to convince Logan Danube into marrying her. When she becomes pregnant with his child, her dream moves one step closer into becoming reality. However, this child, Ruby, is born with clear dark complexion, betraying the truth of Jubi’s racial identity. Ultimately, Jubi’s failure to distance herself from the inheritance of her precarity speaks to the spiritual alienation she undergoes as she tries to set herself apart from her bloodline.

Ruby resists her mother’s self-hatred through her passionate relationship with Sampson. Their tryst suggests the possibility of Black female joy in a nurturing engagement. Moreover, where Logan abandons Jubi upon the discovery of her ethnic identity, Sampson returns to Ruby upon learning that she is pregnant, proving his commitment to support her and the family they are building together. This reinforces the idea that Ruby doesn’t have to be defined by the inheritance of her precarity, enabling her to transcend it through her embrace of her identity. When Ruby gives birth to the light-skinned Gladys, it reignites Jubi’s ambition to break past the inheritance of her family’s precarity through sheer force of will. This, too, fails, adding to Jubi’s shame over her assumption that she or any of her descendants can break away from their identity as Black women.

Jubi’s assumption is ultimately destroyed by Gladys’ experiences as a young woman, as she is targeted by the white men in her community, culminating in the rape she survives. After the Dupree women come together to support Gladys through her healing, Jubi acknowledges her precarity by confronting Logan Danube about the past he has refused to acknowledge. This sets a historical precedent for future generations of Dupree women to follow: Rather than accept the curse as a burden that permanently falls upon women in their family line, they must confront the patriarchal systems that benefit from the exploitation and suffering of Black women. Jubi’s confrontation of Logan eventually resonates with Tati’s confrontation of her father Roman, even though both men go on to refuse accountability to the families they abandoned.

In the end, Tati’s story marks the breaking of the cycle of precarity as she convinces her surviving elders to help her reconstruct the history of her family and find strength in the truth of their survival. She embodies this in the dedication poem she writes to Sa’rah at the end of the novel, indicating that all the daughters of Dupree have come together to remember and uplift her, even though she is dead and forgotten by history.