Because of Winn-Dixie — Chapter 9

Narration Prompt

Summarize the chapter in no more than four sentences. Then identify the philosophical claim the chapter is making — about wisdom as invented rather than inherited, about how strangers function in the emotional lives of children, about the ethics of overturning inherited prejudice through experience — and evaluate whether DiCamillo argues for the claim or simply observes it.

Discussion Questions

1. DiCamillo's introduction of Gloria includes a sequence of physical observations that signals — without naming — Gloria's racial identity: 'crinkly brown skin,' 'a big floppy hat with flowers all over it,' the bottle tree that will appear in Chapter 13, the dialect markers throughout her speech. Analyze this technique of unnamed-but-marked racial signaling. What does the choice not to name accomplish, and what does it cost? Compare with the explicit racial naming in Hurston, Ward, Woodson, and Walker, and the more oblique signaling in Welty, Faulkner, and Lee.
2. Gloria's central claim — 'I got to rely on my heart' — is presented as an invented epistemology. Gloria has constructed her own theory of how to know people, suited to her specific situation. Is DiCamillo making the philosophical claim that all genuine wisdom is invented (worked out by particular people from particular limitations), or is she making the more modest claim that some wisdoms require limitations to develop? Consider how this relates to Aristotle's understanding of phronesis (practical wisdom developed through experience), to Augustine's understanding of grace, and to contemporary disability studies' arguments about how disability can produce specific epistemological resources.

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide