Because of Winn-Dixie — Chapter 22

Narration Prompt

Summarize the chapter in no more than four sentences. Then identify the theological claim the chapter is making — about the nature of love, about the interrupted feast as a test of community, about imitatio Dei as the source of human love — and evaluate whether DiCamillo argues for the claim or simply observes it.

Discussion Questions

1. The preacher's prayer includes three theologically precise phrases: 'complicated and wonderful gifts,' 'the task you put down before us of loving each other,' and 'even as you love us.' Analyze each phrase as a piece of Christian theology delivered through the voice of a small-town preacher in working-class Florida. Is DiCamillo drawing on a specific theological tradition, and does the theological precision deserve the serious critical attention that adult religious fiction routinely receives?
2. The preacher's use of 'task' for love is a specifically Pauline move — love as willed action rather than feeling. Is DiCamillo making a claim about the nature of love itself, or is she rendering the specific theological framework of a particular kind of American Protestantism? And does the answer affect how the book should be read by secular readers?

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide