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Chapter 16
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Because of Winn-Dixie, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Storytelling and Listening
Sadness, Happiness, and Growing Up
Family and Loss
Openness, Friendship, and Community
Summary
Analysis
Miss Franny continues that Littmus was all alone. He sat down on what used to be the front porch and cried for his parents and sisters. Oddly, when he was done, he found that he wanted candy. He made a decision: since the world is sad and ugly, he was going to concentrate on putting something sweet into it. Littmus walked all the way to Florida, planning a candy factory. There, Littmus made the famous Littmus Lozenges. Neither Amanda nor Opal have heard of the candy. Miss Franny explains that they’re not in production anymore, but she still has some. She opens her desk drawers: they’re full of candy.
Miss Franny’s desk drawers full of candy make the case that it’s not useful to move through the world going off of assumptions—even something as mundane as a desk might be filled with wonders. This reflects the main point of Littmus’s story: that it’s important to celebrate and look for the things that are beautiful, even when so much else seems either mundane or downright ugly.
Themes
Miss Franny offers Amanda and Opal Littmus Lozenges. Opal asks if Winn-Dixie can have one too. Winn-Dixie swallows his in one gulp, but Opal eats hers slowly. It tastes like root beer and strawberry, but it also tastes like something that makes Opal feel sad. Miss Franny asks the girls if they like it. Opal likes it, and so does Amanda, but it makes Amanda think of sad things. Opal wonders what Amanda possibly has to feel sad about, since she’s been in Naomi for a long time and still has both parents. Miss Franny reveals that there’s a secret ingredient in the candy: sorrow. Children usually have a hard time tasting it, so Opal and Amanda must’ve experienced great sadness. Opal says that she moved and left all her friends, that Dunlap and Stevie pick on her, and that her greatest sadness is that Mama left.
For Opal, it’s unfathomable that anyone could be unhappy when they have two parents at home that love them. While her own family situation may make this view easier to understand, it also ignores the many other reasons that someone can feel sad—loss of all kinds is a part of life, and it’s especially a part of being a member of a family or a community. Miss Franny’s insistence that kids usually don’t taste the sadness suggests that this kind of nuance is something that people develop with age. Both Amanda and Opal, Miss Franny implies, already know that life contains both happiness and sadness.
Themes
Amanda says that the candy makes her miss Carson. Looking ready to cry, Amanda runs away. Opal asks Miss Franny who Carson is, but Miss Franny shakes her head and says that the world is filled with sorrow. Miss Franny says that Littmus made a fortune because he was able to put sadness in the candy. Opal asks if she can have Littmus Lozenges to take to Gloria, Otis, the preacher, and Sweetie Pie. She stuffs her pockets, checks out Gone with the Wind, and heads for Gloria’s. Opal almost sticks her tongue out at Dunlap and Stevie, but then remembers what Miss Franny said about war and what Gloria said about not judging the boys. She waves. The boys stare, but Dunlap waves back. Opal thinks it’s cool that Amanda liked the story and she wonders who Carson is.
Littmus made a fortune because in his candy, he was able to capture the fact that nothing in life is entirely sweet or entirely sad—everything is, in some regards, a mixture of both. Given what Opal learned today, she now feels more willing to entertain the possibility that Dunlap and Stevie aren’t just jerks. Even if she only waves, she’s taking a step toward befriending the boys. And importantly, she’s doing so because of what her other friends taught her. This reinforces the idea that making friends has a domino effect: making one friend helps a person continue to make them.
Themes
