Sadness, Happiness, and Growing Up Theme Analysis

At 10 years old, Opal is a child in every sense of the word—her perspective and understanding of the world are limited, somewhat selfish, and based purely on what adults have told her. However, over the course of the novel, Opal begins to grow up as she comes to terms with the fact that life is far more nuanced than she originally thought. Through her own experience and through her friends’ stories, she learns that it’s possible for life to be heartbreakingly sad—but also that it’s always possible to find a silver lining or to focus on something beautiful. Similarly, Opal also discovers that it’s impossible to lead a life that is 100 percent happy. In short, as Opal begins to come of age, she discovers that happiness in the adult world is about balance: one must understand that neither happiness nor sorrow are absolute. Sorrow may color someone’s happiness, but there’s also always something positive to celebrate.

From the beginning, the way Opal speaks and behaves suggests that, on some level, she already understands that one cannot wallow in sadness and expect to live a full life. Opal’s father, the preacher, is still mourning that his wife, Mama, left him and young Opal seven years before the novel begins. In Mama’s absence, Opal thinks of her father as a turtle, hiding in his “turtle shell”—and in that shell, he focuses only on the work of being a preacher and dwelling on the sadness he feels. Because he spends so much time in his “turtle shell,” Opal’s father is mostly absent from her life. This is part of the reason she refers to him as “the preacher” to the reader (and in her mind), but calls him “Daddy” to his face—and his absence is the reason why she’s at the grocery store alone on the night that the dog Winn-Dixie comes into her life. The preacher’s way of living is a clear indicator that it’s unhealthy for a person to dwell on their sadness—and it also suggests that doing so has the potential to hurt others, like Opal, and damage their chances at happiness. Because the preacher never voices the truth to Opal—that Mama is gone and isn’t coming back—Opal fixates on the few things she knows about Mama and collects stories to share with her one day, which the novel overwhelmingly suggests hurts both the preacher and Opal. Rather than clinging to the past, it’s necessary to accept the truth of one’s current situation in order to find happiness.

Winn-Dixie’s arrival injects life, happiness, and purpose into Opal and the preacher’s life in a way that they hadn’t considered possible. The dog begins to bring the preacher out of his shell—and most importantly for Opal, he helps her make friends with people in Naomi. Those friends then offer some of the novel’s most important lessons in balance and the role that age and maturity play in achieving it. Miss Franny Block, the elderly librarian, tells Opal stories about her long-gone family members, the most important of which is her great-grandfather, Littmus W. Block. Littmus was 14 when the Civil War broke out, and he felt compelled to fight for the Confederate Army. He not only discovered through the course of his service that “war is hell,” but when the war ended, he discovered that his entire family died and that Union soldiers burned his home. The war itself taught Littmus the importance of not idealizing something—everything, especially war, has its downsides, even if it seemed good and righteous as it did to Littmus. Rather than wallow in his sadness, however, Littmus decided to look for the bright spots and opened a candy factory. The factory made a candy called Littmus Lozenges, which contained a secret ingredient: sadness. Though the candy tastes sweet, it also tastes somehow sad. And while adults and kids Opal’s age can eat the candy and appreciate the sadness in it, younger kids, like five-year-old Sweetie Pie Thomas, spit the candy out. This suggests that it takes a degree of maturity to understand the necessity of acknowledging sadness, even while engaging in something as enjoyable as eating candy.

Opal’s other friend, Gloria Dump, offers another angle: that while people may go through sad times, it’s possible (and necessary) to move on from them. However, she also suggests that it’s foolish to forget the lessons that those sad times doled out. Gloria is an elderly, nearly blind woman who’s an avid gardener and cultivates a genuine, loving friendship with Opal. However, she’s also a recovered alcoholic who keeps a “mistake tree”: a tree onto which she tied alcohol bottles to remind her of her past, how far she’s come, and what she learned during the dark time when she was drinking too much. The mistake tree and the Littmus Lozenges both help Opal and the preacher move through their grief and sadness over losing Mama. After the preacher finally admits that Mama isn’t coming back, Opal stands in front of the mistake tree and promises Mama that she won’t forget her, but that she’ll think about her less in the years to come—and moreover, Opal insists that her heart is full. In other words, by the end of the novel, Opal has let go of Mama enough to be able to focus on all the good things in her life, like Winn-Dixie and all of her new human friends. While Mama’s memory and its associated sadness will always be a part of Opal’s life, the novel shows that it’s possible to choose to focus on the bright spots. Only by doing this can people, grow, change, and become better, more mature people.