The candy bar that “blend[s] milk and dark chocolate” and claims that “Bitter Makes It Better” is a symbol of life and the rationales people use to make themselves feel better about difficult times (11). Bud considers the marketing a “cruel hoax,” in which the consumer is assured that the “introduction of adversity into something otherwise pure and good only enhances said pureness and goodness” (11)—that is, that life’s “bitter” moments make the “sweet” ones more meaningful. However, the current bitterness of Bud’s life only painfully reminds him of the better times that preceded them, when he and Catherine were happy, young, and carefree. Bud therefore rejects the slogan as a platitude.

Signaling the aptness of their match, Miss Winkle considers the very same candy and finds the slogan ridiculous: “Nothing had ever struck [her] as less true. In life’s pervasive bitterness, one was lucky to receive a moment of milk” (128). While Miss Winkle enjoys the early days of her liaison with Bud, she fears that at any moment, “God would taketh Bud away” as God has so many other people and beloved things (128). Both she and Bud feel that they’ve each been dealt a fair amount of bitter, and neither feels enriched or “better” as a result.