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
India Opal Buloni, who goes by Opal, introduces herself. Last summer, Opal’s daddy, the preacher, sent her to the store for groceries—and she came home with a dog. Opal enters the produce section of her local Winn-Dixie grocery store and almost runs into the store manager, who’s screaming, demanding to know who let a dog in the store. Opal sees vegetables all over and employees running around. Finally, the dog races around the corner: he’s big and ugly, and he looks like he’s having the time of his life. The dog stops in front of Opal and smiles by pulling his lips back and showing his teeth. He wags his tail, knocks some oranges off a display, and then races for the manager. The dog smiles at the manager and gets up on his hind legs to say hello, but he ends up knocking the manager over.
It’s immediately apparent that the dog is extremely friendly. He sets an example for how, per the novel, people should view strangers: as potential friends. The dog also illustrates another of the main points, which is that there are always good things in life to celebrate. Even though the dog is ugly and isn’t supposed to be running around a grocery store, he’s still having a fantastic time. Though Opal doesn’t understand how important these ideas are yet, she can recognize how well this dog is living—and this offers hope that Opal will be able to apply his example to her own life.
Themes
The manager starts to cry, and the dog, concerned, licks the man’s face. When the manager shouts for someone to call the pound, Opal says that the dog is hers. Everyone stares at her. She knows she just did something stupid, but she can’t stand the thought of the dog going to the pound. She calls the dog and figures that like everyone else, he must have a name. Opal calls him the first thing that pops into her head: Winn-Dixie. The dog runs to her. The manager looks suspicious, but Opal apologizes for letting the dog into the store. She carefully walks out the door, Winn-Dixie trailing her closely. Outside, she looks him over and sees that he’s skinny and dirty. He smiles so big that he sneezes, which makes Opal fall in love with him immediately. She tells him that they need to go talk to the preacher.
Right away, Opal begins to take Winn-Dixie’s example to heart by insisting that he’s hers—that is, that they’re friends and have history together. Even though this isn’t true, Opal discovers as soon as she falls in love with the dog that good things come when she goes through life willing to see others as potential friends—no matter how dirty, ill-behaved they are, or how seemingly bad of an idea making that friend might be. Winn-Dixie’s concern for the manager is a testament to the idea that it’s important to care for others, even when those others aren’t willing to return the favor.
Themes
