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Critical Analysis of The Novel Charlotte's Web

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Published: Nov 8, 2021

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Introduction.

• White, E. (1952). Charlotte’s Web. United States: Harper.

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Charlotte's Web

by E.B. White

Charlotte's web study guide.

As a child, White found complete happiness during summers in the Belgrade Lakes in Maine and this love of nature, which lasted his whole life, inspired all three of his children’s books. His first, Stuart Little took White about eighteen years to write but Charlotte ’s Web was completed after a relatively short gestation period of two years. The story began as an essay for the Atlantic Monthly entitled Death of a Pig which told of how White looked after an ill pig that eventually died. Writing from his farm in Maine, we have an account of how White reacted to the death of one of his pigs there: “At intervals during the last day, I took cool fresh water down to him [the pig] and, at such times as he found the strength to get to his feet, he would stand with his head in the pail and snuffle his snout around…Once, near the last, while I was attending him, I saw him try to make a bed for himself, but he lacked the strength, and when he set his snout into the dust, he was unable to plow even the little furrow he needed to lie down in…I went back up to the house and to bed, and cried internally – deep hemorrhagic in tears. I didn’t wake till nearly eight the next morning, and when I looked out the open window, the grave was already being dug…I could hear the spade strike against the small rocks that blocked the way. Never send to know for whom the grave is dug, I said to myself, it’s dug for thee.”

The idea for Charlotte’s Web came to White while he was on his farm. He explains: “One day when I was on my way to feed the pig, I began to feel sorry for the pig because, like most pigs, it was doomed to die. This made me sad so I started thinking of ways to save a pig’s life. I had been watching a big grey spider at her work and was impressed by how clever she was at weaving. Gradually I worked the spider into the story that you know, a story of friendship and salvation on a farm.” In fact, it is clear from his poem Natural History written twenty three years before Charlotte’s Web that White had been long fascinated by spiders and their webs:

The spider, dropping down from twig,

Unwinds a threat of her devising:

A thin , premediated rig

To use in rising.

And all the journey down through space,

In cool decent, and loyal-hearted,

She builds a ladder to the place

From which she started.

Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do,

In spider’s web a truth discerning,

Attach one silken strand to you

For my returning.

White’s tale was born from a love of nature and there is nothing forced about it. The following is White’s own description of his work, taken from the New York Times : “What am I saying to my reader? Well, I never know. Writing to me is not an exercise in addressing readers, it is more as though I were talking to myself while shaving. My foray into the field of children’s literature was an accident, and although I do not mean to suggest that I spun my two yarns in perfect innocence and that I did not set about writing Charlotte’s Web deliberately, nevertheless, the thing started innocently enough, and I kept on because I found it was fun. It also became rewarding in other ways – and that was a surprise, as I am not essentially a storyteller and was taking a holiday from my regular work.”

White was working at the height of his craft when he finished Charlotte’s Web in 1952 and his editor, Ursula Nordstrom claimed that she never altered even a word of the manuscript that was delivered to her and published that year. She did suggest a different chapter name for “The Death of Charlotte” which finally became “The Last Day”. Fifty thousand copies were printed immediately and Charlotte’s Web went on to become the best-selling children’s paperback book in America.

When it was first published, Eudora Welty reviewed it for the New York Times Book Review and declared it “just about perfect”. The book did have its critics though and Anne Carroll Moore – who was the powerful head of Children’s Services of the New York Public Library - wrote in “The Horn Book” that she thought White’s book was “hard to take from so masterful a hand”. Many believe that Moore played a critical role in denying White the gold Newbery seal. Instead Ann Nolan Clark’s (seldom-read) “The Secret of the Andes” won the medal.

Some of the early controversy surrounding the book stemmed from White’s honest portrayal of issues of life and death. After World War Two there was much fear and uncertainty about death and, written in 1952, Charlotte's Web investigates the individual's relationship to the uncertainty of life, of friendship, love and loss. Although the book addresses death, loneliness and loss, it also celebrates life, love and companionship and this is what makes the novel so moving. White himself, making a commercial recording of Charlotte’s Web , choked as he read the words “and no one was with her when she died.” Over fifty years after its publication and Charlotte’s Web is still one of the best-loved children’s books of all time.

Charlotte’s Web Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Charlotte’s Web is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Wilbur was born during the night.

“Out to the hoghouse,” replied Mrs. Arable. “Some pigs were born last night.”

Vocab chapters 9-12

Like a crossward? I need to see the letters of the word to try to help.

An animal in the story with webbed feet?

Goose has webbed feet.

Study Guide for Charlotte’s Web

Charlotte's Web is a book by E.B. White. The Charlotte's Web study guide contains a biography of E.B. White, 100 quiz questions, a list of major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Charlotte's Web
• Charlotte's Web Summary
• Character List

Essays for Charlotte’s Web

Charlotte's Web is a children's novel by E.B. White. Charlotte's Web literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Charlotte's Web written by E.B. White.

• Didacticism and Teaching in Animal Literature and Charlotte’s Web
• Charlotte's Web: Our Connection with Food
• The Not So Subtle Portrayal of Supernatural Elements in E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web and Louis Sachar’s Holes
• E.B. White's Faith in Nature: The Critique of Christianity in 'Charlotte's Web'

Wikipedia Entries for Charlotte’s Web

• Introduction

ARTS & CULTURE

How e.b. white wove charlotte’s web.

A new book explores how the author of the beloved children’s book was inspired by his love for nature and animals

Chloe Schama

Not long before E.B. White started writing his classic children’s story Charlotte’s Web about a spider called Charlotte and a pig named Wilbur, he had a porcine encounter that seems to have deeply affected him. In a 1947 essay for the Atlantic Monthly , he describes several days and nights spent with an ailing pig—one he had originally intended to butcher. “[The pig’s] suffering soon became the embodiment of all earthly wretchedness,” White wrote. The animal died, but had he recovered it is very doubtful that White would have had the heart to carry out his intentions. “The loss we felt was not the loss of ham but the loss of pig,” he wrote in the essay.

That sentiment became part of the inspiration for Charlotte’s Web , published in 1952 and still one of the most beloved books of all time. Now a new book by Michael Sims focuses on White’s lifelong connection to animals and nature. The Story of Charlotte’s Web: E.B. White’s Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic explores White’s encounters with frogs and field mice, rivers and lakes, stars and centipedes, to paint a portrait of the writer as a devoted naturalist—the 20th-century heir to Thoreau, perhaps. White once wrote of himself, “This boy felt for animals a kinship he never felt for people.” Examining White’s regard for nature and animals, Sims unpacks the appeal of Charlotte’s Web .

Sims originally conceived of his book as a larger project, one that would examine how authors of children’s books, such as Beatrix Potter and A.A. Milne, had been inspired by nature, but he came to focus entirely on White, he recently told me, because White’s preoccupation with the natural world outweighed that of most other authors. “Certain writers have an empathy for the world,” Sims said. “Their basic writing mode is personification. E.B. White is that kind of writer; he could animate a splash of sunlight.”

The seeds of White’s fascination with nature were planted early, according to Sims’ account. The youngest of his seven siblings and painfully shy, Elwyn Brooks White was “miserable when more than two people at a time looked at him.” Of fragile health, he suffered from hay fever, in particular, which led one doctor to recommend that his parents “douse his head in cold water every morning before breakfast.” In search of fresh country air, his family would travel most summers to a rustic lakeside camp in Maine. Young Elwyn also scoured the nearby woods and barn of his boyhood home in Mount Vernon, New York, acquainting himself with farm animals and assorted critters. Gradually, Sims says, Elwyn “became aware that animals were actors themselves, living their own busy lives, not merely background characters in his own little drama.”

As an adult White found communion with only a few select humans, most of them at The New Yorker —his wife, Katharine Angell, an editor at the magazine; its founder, Harold Ross; and essayist and fiction writer James Thurber, another colleague. In fact, White’s preoccupation with nature and animals became a kind of shield in his adult life. “He hid behind animals,” Sims writes. During his college years, White tried to woo one of his Cornell classmates by comparing her eyes to those of the most beautiful creature he could summon: his dog, Mutt. Years later when Angell announced she was pregnant with their first child, he was struck speechless, so he wrote a letter to her “from” their pet dog Daisy, describing the excitement and anxiety of the dog’s owner. “He gets thinking that nothing that he writes or says ever quite expresses his feeling,” wrote “Daisy,” “and he worries about his inarticulateness just the same as he does about his bowels.” In one of his early New Yorker pieces, White interviews a sparrow about the pros and cons of urban living, an issue that would preoccupy the writer as well.

Columns for  The New Yorker  were White’s bread and butter, but he had already written one children’s book before  Charlotte’s Web . Published in 1945,  Stuart Little  is the story of the adventures of a tiny boy who looked like a mouse. White, who once admitted to having “mice in the subconscious,” had been fascinated by the creatures for decades and had made them the subject of his childhood writings and stories for family gatherings.

Apparently, he was just as taken with spiders. Fifteen years before penning  Charlotte’s Web , spiders informed one of White’s romantic tributes to Angell, a poem in which he describes a spider “dropping down from twig,” descending “down through space” and eventually building a ladder to the point where he started. The poem concludes:

Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do, In spider’s web a truth discerning, Attach one silken strand to you For my returning.

In the fall of 1948, while doing chores in his barn in Brooklin, Maine, White began to observe a spider spinning an egg sac. When work called him back to the city, he was loathe to abandon his small friend and her project and so he severed the sac from its web, placed it in a candy box, and brought the makeshift incubation chamber back to the city, where it lived on his bedroom bureau. Several weeks later, the spiders hatched and covered White’s nail scissors and hairbrush with a fine web. “After the spiders left the bureau,” Sims writes, “they continued to scurry around in [White’s] imagination.”

Upon publication,  Charlotte’s Web , a story of a clever spider who saves a pig, had obvious appeal to children, but adults heralded it as well. In her review for the  New York Times , Eudora Welty wrote that it was “just about perfect, and just about magical in the way it is done.” Pamela Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins series, wrote that any adult “who can still dip into it—even with only so much as a toe—is certain at last of dying young even if he lives to ninety.”

White lived to the age of 86. Though admired for his essays, his fiction and his revision of William Strunk’s  Elements of Style  (still a widely used guide to writing), it is  Charlotte’s Web  that keeps his name before the public, generation after generation. Some 200,000 copies are sold every year, and it has been translated into more than 30 languages. The book repeatedly tops lists compiled by teachers and librarians as one of the best children’s books of all time.

Looking back on the success of  Charlotte’s Web  a decade after it was published, White wrote in the  New York Times  in 1961 that writing the book “started innocently enough, and I kept on because I found it was fun.” He then added: “All that I ever hope to say in books is that I love the world. I guess you can find that in there, if you dig around. Animals are part of my world and I try to report them faithfully and with respect.”

Get the latest Travel & Culture stories in your inbox.

Chloe Schama | | READ MORE

Chloe Schama is deputy editor of the New Republic and writes regularly about books for Smithsonian magazine. She recently published Wild Romance , a critically acclaimed nonfiction account of a Victorian-era marriage scandal.

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Charlotte’s Web

E. b. white.

E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web centers around the tender, life-changing friendship between a pig named Wilbur and a spider named Charlotte . Fittingly, the book’s central theme is friendship—specifically the ways in which true friendship often involves self-sacrifice. Throughout his classic children’s novel about the sacredness of kindness, love, and solidarity, White uses the many different kinds of friendships at the heart of the story to suggest that the rarest and truest of friends are those who are willing to put their hopes, dreams, and even their lives on the line for the ones they love.

There are many different kinds of friendships to be found within the pages of Charlotte’s Web , and through the two central friendships Wilbur the pig experiences—with Fern Arable and with Charlotte the spider—White demonstrates the ways in which friendship and self-sacrifice can often go hand-in-hand. Wilbur and Fern’s friendship begins when Fern, an eight-year-old girl, stops her father from unfairly killing the runt of their sow’s newest litter. Fern feeds the newborn Wilbur from a bottle, gives him carriage rides alongside her favorite dolls, and makes sure his every need is met. Their friendship is a true one, but because Fern is Wilbur’s first and only friend, he doesn’t know yet how very lucky he is to have her—or how her friendship literally saved him. Fern has to adjust her own routines and responsibilities to make room for Wilbur in her life—a sacrifice she willingly undertakes as she bottle-feeds him three or four times each day and spends the heady first days of spring caring for Wilbur rather than frolicking with her brother Avery and their friends. Though Wilbur’s friendship with Fern will grow and change as the novel progresses, the fact that she loved him, stuck up for him, and used her voice to help him when he had none—sacrificing her time, her care, and her other friendships for his well-being—is a dynamic that will be repeated in Wilbur’s friendship with Charlotte.

When Wilbur gets too big to be kept in the house, Mr. and Mrs. Arable force Fern to sell Wilbur for six dollars to their neighbors and family, the Zuckermans. As Wilbur moves to the Zuckerman farm, he goes through a major adjustment period. Fern visits most days, but can’t be with Wilbur all the time, and he feels her absence profoundly even as he begins to enjoy his new routines. Surrounded everywhere by new animals but unable to make true friends with the gossipy geese , the standoffish sheep, or the conniving barn rat Templeton , Wilbur despairs that he’ll never have a true friend again—until a friendly spider’s voice in the dark whispers to him and tells him not to be afraid. When Wilbur meets the astute, practical, and inventive Charlotte, he feels rescued from loneliness. Wilbur loves Charlotte so much that he tries to emulate her by tying a string to his tail in hopes of spinning a web just like hers, and he hangs on her every word as she shares stories of her adventurous cousins and their spidery hijinks. Wilbur is devoted to Charlotte entirely, and when news arrives that Homer Zuckerman plans to slaughter Wilbur for meat at Christmastime, Charlotte knows she has to defend her friend. Though the conception and execution of her master plan—to spin into her webs impressive words which glorify Wilbur in the hopes of signaling to the farmers how special and deserving of life Wilbur is—wears Charlotte out both physically and emotionally, she sacrifices her own well-being for Wilbur. Her final act is to help him secure a special prize at the county fair by spinning one of her special webs from scratch there—too weak to return to the barn, having sacrificed the last bits of strength in her short life for Wilbur’s security, Charlotte sends Wilbur home with the eggs she’s laid, and dies alone on the fairgrounds.

In the novel’s final pages, White shows Wilbur adjusting to life on the farm without Charlotte. When the egg sac hatches one day and Charlotte’s children are born, Wilbur is happy—but when most of them balloon away on the wind, he is disheartened. Three of Charlotte’s daughters, though, stay behind, and as Wilbur introduces himself to them he makes this pledge: “I was devoted to your mother. I owe my very life to her. She was brilliant, beautiful, and loyal to the end. I shall always treasure her memory. To you, her daughters, I pledge my friendship, forever and ever.” Wilbur’s devotion to Charlotte’s daughters shows that he is willing to repay his debt to her by offering her daughters the same attention, respect, and devotion that she always showed to him.

Through Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White shows that is a rare and beautiful thing to find someone who is willing to use their own talent, time, and effort to help or defend a friend in need. For the rest of his life, Wilbur remembers his special friendship with Charlotte fondly and humbly—and his gratitude to her for the sacrifices she made on his behalf during her short life enhances “the glory of everything” around him.

Friendship and Sacrifice ThemeTracker

Friendship and Sacrifice Quotes in Charlotte’s Web

“Fern,” said Mr. Arable, “I know more about raising a litter of pigs than you do. A weakling makes trouble. Now run along!”

“But it’s unfair,” cried Fern. “The pig couldn’t help being born small, could it? If I had been very small at birth, would you have killed me?”

Mr. Arable smiled. “Certainly not,” he said, looking down at his daughter with love. “But this is different. A little girl is one thing, a little runty pig is another.”

“I see no difference,” replied Fern, still hanging on to the ax. “This is the most terrible case of injustice I ever heard of.”

A queer look came over John Arable’s face. He seemed almost ready to cry himself.

“All right,” he said. “You go back to the house and 1will bring the runt when I come in. I’ll let you start it on a bottle, like a baby. Then you’ll see what trouble a pig can be.”

Every morning after breakfast, Wilbur walked out to the road with Fern and waited with her till the bus came. She would wave good-bye to him, and he would stand and watch the bus until it vanished around a turn. While Fern was in school, Wilbur was shut up inside his yard. But as soon as she got home in the afternoon, she would take him out and he would follow her around the place. If she went into the house, Wilbur went, too. If she went upstairs, Wilbur would wait at the bottom step until she came down again. If she took her doll for a walk in the doll carriage, Wilbur followed along. Sometimes, on these journeys, Wilbur would get tired, and Fern would pick him up and put him in the carriage alongside the doll. He liked this. And if he was very tired, he would close his eyes and go to sleep under the doll’s blanket. He looked cute when his eyes were closed, because his lashes were so long. The doll would close her eyes, too, and Fern would wheel the carriage very slowly and smoothly so as not to wake her infants.

Wilbur burst into tears. “I don’t want to die,” he moaned. “I want to stay alive, right here in my comfortable manure pile with all my friends. I want to breathe the beautiful air and lie in the beautiful sun.”

“You’re certainly making a beautiful noise,” snapped the old sheep.

“I don’t want to die!” screamed Wilbur, throwing himself to the ground.

“You shall not die,” said Charlotte, briskly.

“What? Really?” cried Wilbur. “Who’s going to save me?”

“I am,” said Charlotte.

“How?” asked Wilbur.

“That remains to be seen. But I am going to save you, and I want you to quiet down immediately. You’re carrying on in a childish way. Stop your crying! I can’t stand hysterics.”

There, in the center of the web, neatly woven in block letters, was a message. It said: SOME PIG!

Lurvy felt weak. He brushed his hand across his eyes and stared harder at Charlotte’s web. “I’m seeing things,” he whispered. He dropped to his knees and uttered a short prayer. Then, forgetting all about Wilbur’s breakfast, he walked back to the house and called Mr. Zuckerman.

“I think you’d better come down to the pigpen,” he said.

Zuckerman stared at the writing on the web. Then he murmured the words “Some Pig.” Then he looked at Lurvy. Then they both began to tremble. Charlotte, sleepy after her night’s exertions, smiled as she watched.

Wilbur came and stood directly under the web.

“Some pig!” muttered Lurvy in a low voice.

“Some pig!” whispered Mr. Zuckerman.

“Run around!” commanded Charlotte. “I want to see you in action, to see if you are radiant.”

Wilbur raced to the end of his yard.

“Now back again, faster!” said Charlotte.

Wilbur galloped back. His skin shone. His tail had a fine, tight curl in it.

“Jump into the air!” cried Charlotte.

Wilbur jumped as high as he could.

“Keep your knees straight and touch the ground with your ears!” called Charlotte.

Wilbur obeyed.

“Do a back flip with a half twist in it!” cried Charlotte.

Wilbur went over backwards, writhing and twisting.

“O.K., Wilbur,” said Charlotte. “You can go back to sleep. O.K., Templeton, the soap ad will do, I guess. I’m not sure Wilbur’s action is exactly radiant, but it’s interesting.”

“Actually,” said Wilbur, “I feel radiant.”

“Do you?” said Charlotte, looking at him with affection. “Well, you’re a good little pig, and radiant you shall be.”

“What are you doing up there, Charlotte?”

“Oh, making something,” she said. “Making something, as usual.”

“Is it something for me?” asked Wilbur.

“No,” said Charlotte. “It’s something for me , for a change.”

“Please tell me what it is,” begged Wilbur.

“I’ll tell you in the morning,” she said. “When the first light comes into the sky and the sparrows stir and the cows rattle their chains, when the rooster crows and the stars fade, when early cars whisper along the highway, you look up here and I’ll show you something. I will show you my masterpiece.”

The Zuckermans and the Arables stared at the tag. Mrs. Zuckerman began to cry. Nobody said a word. They just stared at the tag. Then they stared at Uncle. Then they stared at the tag again. Lurvy took out an enormous handkerchief and blew his nose very loud— so loud, in fact, that the noise was heard by stableboys over at the horse barn.

“Can I have some money?” asked Fern. “I want to go out on the midway.”

“You stay right where you are!” said her mother. Tears came to Fern’s eyes.

“What’s everybody crying about?” asked Mr. Zuckerman. “Let’s get busy! Edith, bring the buttermilk!”

Mrs. Zuckerman wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. She went to the truck and came back with a gallon jar of buttermilk.

“Bath time!” said Zuckerman, cheerfully.

“Ladeez and gentlemen,” said the loud speaker, “we now present Mr. Homer L. Zuckerman’s distinguished pig. The fame of this unique animal has spread to the far corners of the earth, attracting many valuable tourists to our great State.”

“This magnificent animal,” continued the loud speaker, “is truly terrific. Look at him, ladies and gentlemen! Note the smoothness and whiteness of the coat, observe the spotless skin, the healthy pink glow of ears and snout.”

“Ladeez and gentlemen,” continued the loud speaker, “I must not take any more of your valuable time. On behalf of the governors of the Fair, I have the honor of awarding a special prize of twenty-five dollars to Mr. Zuckerman, together with a handsome bronze medal suitably engraved, in token of our appreciation of the part played by this pig—this radiant, this terrific, this humble pig—in attracting so many visitors to our great County Fair.”

“Why did you do all this for me?” [Wilbur] asked. “I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.”

“You have been my friend,” replied Charlotte. “That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”

He carefully took the little bundle in his mouth and held it there on top of his tongue. He remembered what Charlotte had told him—that the sac was waterproof and strong. It felt funny on his tongue and made him drool a bit. And of course he couldn’t say anything. But as he was being shoved into the crate, he looked up at Charlotte and gave her a wink. She knew he was saying good-bye in the only way he could. And she knew her children were safe.

“Good-bye!” she whispered. Then she summoned all her strength and waved one of her front legs at him. She never moved again. Next day, as the Ferris wheel was being taken apart and the race horses were being loaded into vans and the entertainers were packing up their belongings and driving away in their trailers, Charlotte died. The Fair Grounds were soon deserted. The sheds and buildings were empty and forlorn. The infield was littered with bottles and trash. Nobody, of the hundreds of people that had visited the Fair, knew that a grey spider had played the most important part of all. No one was with her when she died.

As time went on, and the months and years came and went, [Wilbur] was never without friends. Fern did not come regularly to the barn any more. She was growing up, and was careful to avoid childish things, like sitting on a milk stool near a pigpen. But Charlotte’s children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, year after year, lived in the doorway. Each spring there were new little spiders hatching out to take the place of the old. Most of them sailed away, on their balloons. But always two or three stayed and set up housekeeping in the doorway.

Mr. Zuckerman took fine care of Wilbur all the rest of his days, and the pig was often visited by friends and admirers, for nobody ever forgot the year of his triumph and the miracle of the web. Life in the barn was very good—night and day, winter and summer, spring and fall, dull days and bright days. It was the best place to be, thought Wilbur, this warm delicious cellar, with the garrulous geese, the changing seasons, the heat of the sun, the passage of swallows, the nearness of rats, the sameness of sheep, the love of spiders, the smell of manure, and the glory of everything. Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.

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Themes and Analysis

Charlotte's web, by e.b. white.

'Charlotte's Web' by E.B. White is a classic children's book that has been beloved by readers of all ages for generations. It tells the story of Wilbur, a young pig, and Charlotte, a spider, as they form a deep bond in the face of adversity. 

Article written by Emma Baldwin

B.A. in English, B.F.A. in Fine Art, and B.A. in Art Histories from East Carolina University.

The story is full of powerful themes, timeless symbols, and important moments that make it so special. Charlotte’s Web is a beloved classic written by E.B. White in 1952. It tells the story of Wilbur, a young pig facing the prospect of being slaughtered, and his friendship with Charlotte, a spider.

Through their bond and Charlotte’s web-spinning, Wilbur is able to survive and live out the rest of his life happily in the end. This charming tale is filled with warmth, humor, and moral lessons about life and friendship.

Charlotte’s Web Themes 

Friendship is an important theme throughout Charlotte’s Web . Wilbur and Charlotte form a strong bond that transcends species, becoming an unlikely pair. The other animals in the barnyard also demonstrate strong friendships with each other, forming a tight-knit community. This friendship serves as a reminder that kindness and compassion can be found in even the most unexpected places.

Compassion is a key theme in Charlotte’s Web . From the very start of the novel, Fern demonstrates tremendous compassion towards Wilbur when she saves him from being slaughtered. Throughout the story, Charlotte shows an immense amount of compassion towards Wilbur, protecting him from danger and ultimately sacrificing her own life for his. This theme demonstrates that sometimes we need to think beyond our own needs and consider the needs of others .

Perseverance

Perseverance is another important theme in Charlotte’s Web . Wilbur must persevere despite his hardships, and Charlotte must come up with creative solutions to protect him. In the end, their perseverance pays off, and Wilbur finds a way to survive and thrive in the barnyard. This theme reminds us that with enough determination and creativity, anything is possible.

Key Moments in Charlotte’s Web

• When Wilbur is born, Fern pleads with her father to save his life.
• Charlotte arrives at the Zuckerman farm and befriends Wilbur.
• Wilbur discovers the words “some pig” in Charlotte’s web.
• When Wilbur wins the award at the county fair for being “some pig”. 
• Templeton finds the pieces of paper to help Charlotte make her web sayings. 
• When Wilbur leaves for the Fair and Charlotte reveals to Wilbur that she will soon die. 
• When Wilbur learns that Charlotte’s eggs have hatched and he has new friends.
• Wilbur visits Charlotte’s egg sac in the winter and finds out all of her children have survived. 
• Wilbur is reunited with Charlotte’s children, and they share the news of her passing. 
• Wilbur moves to a new home with his new family and looks up to see a “miraculous” web in the sky as a reminder of Charlotte’s legacy.

Tone and Style

The tone of Charlotte’s Web is one of innocence, gentleness, and whimsy. Throughout the story, there are moments of joy, sorrow, love, and friendship. E.B. White uses humor to make the characters come alive and shows us the power of loyalty and family. 

The style in which Charlotte’s Web is written is a masterful mix of vivid imagery, humor, and heartfelt emotion. E.B. White writes with an elegant simplicity that captures the essence of a complex story. The combination of description and dialogue brings the characters to life and allows the reader to experience their joys, sorrows, and triumphs. It is easy to become immersed in the story and feel connected to the characters in Charlotte’s Web.

Symbols in Charlotte’s Web

The spider web.

One of the most iconic symbols in Charlotte’s Web is the spider web. It is a representation of Charlotte’s hard work and ingenuity in protecting Wilbur from Farmer Zuckerman. It also symbolizes Wilbur’s bond with Charlotte as she does everything she can to make sure that he’s safe.

Food is a symbol that comes up a few times in the novel. Everyone eats, no matter who they are or what kind of creature they are. The pigs, spiders, geese, sheep, and human beings all require sustenance to survive. This is one of the many ways that E.B. White reminds readers, no matter their age, of the ways that all living things are united. 

Charlotte’s Eggs

At the end of the novel, Wilbur learns that Charlotte has produced an egg sack and that her life is coming to an end. It symbolizes the future and the legacy of an important friendship. Wilbur takes care of the egg sack in honor of his friend Charlotte after she dies and is heartbroken when all but three of the spiders leave to live their lives elsewhere. But, the three remaining spiders become his friends and have more babies that live and grow in the barn. 

What is the main theme of Charlotte’s Web ? 

The main theme of Charlotte’s Web is the power of friendship. Wilbur, Charlotte, and the other animals in the barn work together to save Wilbur’s life and illustrate the importance of community. 

What kind of tone does E.B. White use in Charlotte’s Web?

E.B. White’s tone in Charlotte’s Web is playful yet sincere. His characters are endearing, and their dialogue is often lighthearted and humorous. At the same time, White conveys meaningful messages about friendship, mortality, and the cycle of life. 

How does the author use symbolism in Charlotte’s Web ?

Symbols are an important part of Charlotte’s Web. The web is a symbol of friendship and loyalty, while the spider represents selflessness. Wilbur’s pigpen also serves as a symbol of his innocence and naivety. Additionally, the words in Charlotte’s web can be seen as symbols of hope, compassion, and understanding.

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Charlotte's Web

83 pages • 2 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

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Chapters 20-22

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Summary and Study Guide

Charlotte’s Web was written by E. B. White, illustrated by Garth Williams, and first published in 1952. It is considered a quintessential American children’s fiction novel and has been adapted into two films (1973, 2006) and a stage musical. Over the years, Charlotte’s Web has been awarded the Newbery Honor Award for children’s books, the George C. Stone Center for Children’s Books Recognition of Merit Award, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, and the Massachusetts Children’s Book Award. Elwyn Brooks White was a children’s author who wrote many timeless children’s books, including Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan . Charlotte’s Web is considered one of the top 100 children’s novels of all time.

This guide utilizes the 1980 publication of the novel.

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Plot Summary

Charlotte’s Web begins on a spring day when a runt piglet is born, and Mr. Arable announces that he must slaughter it. His daughter Fern protests this decision, considering it unfair that this pig must die simply for being small. Her parents agree to let her keep it for a while, and Fern names him Wilbur . She takes extraordinary care of Wilbur for the first two weeks of his life, and he grows too big to live with her. Wilbur is moved to Fern’s uncle’s farm nearby, the Zuckermans. There, he is given a new home with a pig pen and a barn.

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Fern comes to visit Wilbur almost every day, and Wilbur begins to grow quickly. He misses Fern when she is not there and takes it upon himself to make new friends. His first friend is a rat named Templeton , but the rat is standoffish and not always around. Wilbur is offered friendship from an unlikely source instead: a spider named Charlotte , who has made her home in the barn doorway. The two quickly become friends, and Charlotte becomes protective over Wilbur. When a sheep announces that Wilbur may likely be slaughtered at Christmas time, Charlotte decides she must find a way to save him. Meanwhile, Fern is the only one who hears the animals talk and decides to spend her summer watching this all unfold.

Charlotte formulates a plan to save Wilbur by spinning words into her web that describe him as an extraordinary pig. She knows that she can fool the gullible humans into believing it is true, and her plan succeeds. From the time she spins the words “some pig” into her web, people from far and wide become enamored with Wilbur. Charlotte spins two more subsequent phrases, “terrific” and “humble,” which serve to propel Wilbur into winning a special prize at the County Fair that fall. The entire county becomes convinced that Wilbur is a miracle pig, and Charlotte becomes convinced that the Zuckermans will not eat him. Charlotte knows her life as a spider is short and wants to ensure Wilbur is safe before she is gone.

After the fair, Charlotte knows she is nearing the end of her life. Having laid her egg sac the night before, and secured Wilbur’s future with her tricks, Charlotte can die in peace. Wilbur takes the egg sac back to the farm with him, and Charlotte dies in the pen at the fair on her own. The next spring, many new spiders hatch from Charlotte’s egg sac, and three of them decide to make their homes in the barn. Wilbur instantly befriends them, vowing to protect them. Charlotte’s children have children, and this cycle continues for many years. Wilbur is never again without a friend, but he never forgets his truest friend, Charlotte.

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“Charlotte’s Web” by White for Literacy Development Essay

Introduction, book description, literacy strategies, the use of strategies for learners with language deficiencies, conclusions.

The increased attention to early childhood education is a tendency of recent decades. The rapid development of technology gives many opportunities, and the coming generations should be able to use them and to provide continuous progress. However, language and literacy development is the principal concern of school education. The age group under consideration includes primary school students. Teaching in primary school, especially during its first year, is a challenge for a teacher. Students come to school with diverse skills and capacities. It is also true about their literacy development (McLachlan, Nicholson, Fielding-Barnsley, Mercer, & Ohi, 2012). The task of a teacher is to keep the learners interested and motivated. Although language and literacy development begin in the pre-school period, “primary school teacher will support the child’s literacy learning by building on the literacy foundations that have been partially developed through prior experience” (McLachlan et al., 2012, p.174). A book selected according to age peculiarities and considering the interests of children can become a perfect tool in language and literacy development. The book I have chosen is Charlotte’s Web (White, 2015). It is a classic child novel and one of the most popular books for first independent readings or reading aloud with parents or in the class.

Charlotte’s Web is a novel for children by an American writer E.B.White (White, 2015). First published in 1952, it quickly gained popularity and became a best-seller. It is a story that has everything that a child may want. The main characters are a pig Wilbur and a barn spider Charlotte. The story of their friendship is described throughout the novel. Charlotte tries to save Wilbur when the farmer wants to kill him, and Wilbur takes care of Charlotte’s eggs and later of her children. Another important character of the story is a girl named Fern. She is a farmer’s daughter who took care of Wilbur when he was little and continues visiting him. This character also implies magic qualities for she is the only person in the novel who understands the nonhuman language. The book can be used in different aspects of the educational process such as moral issues or the topic of friendship. I suggest using it as a basis for literacy strategies aimed at language and literacy development in primary school.

In primary school children already have some literacy skills. Thus, the strategies applied should be oriented to further language and literacy development (McLachlan et al., 2012). Vocabulary enhancement is among the main strategies. Charlotte’s Web is a book with many challenging words. Guess the meaning and fill-in activities may be fruitful here. Another engaging activity is a word search that can be designed in the shape of a web. One more aspect of vocabulary enhancement can be an adjective game aimed at describing the main characters. Since the book is divided into chapters, there will not be many new words in each of them; thus the learning will not be tiring.

Another strategy applied with primary school students is the comprehension of what was read (McLachlan et al., 2012). It implies not only the understanding of the story but also reproducing the content. The activities appropriate with this strategy can be a retelling, discussion, or role-play. As a rule, primary school students of second and third years can write. Thus a written comprehension is possible. It teaches the students to express themselves both orally and in writing.

One more strategy that may be effective includes phonological awareness activities. It makes the children get acquainted with the sounds of a language. The activities that imply phonological awareness comprise listening to the stories, songs, or poems, and participating in games. The methods mentioned above should include tasks on sound matching, rhyme, and alliteration. Such activities combine a game with learning. About Charlotte’s Web, imitating animals or guessing their voices can be included as a phonological activity.

Language deficiencies are usually revealed during childhood. Often with the appropriate training, they can be minimized or corrected. Anyway, children with specific language impartments need much attention (Leonard, 2013). The strategies mentioned in the previous part of the paper can be successfully applied to learners with language deficiencies. Vocabulary enhancement can be done through matching activities. At first, children can match the words they hear with the pictures, later the images of words can be added. For example, children with dyslexia may find interesting matching the words with the pictures thus uniting both the word image and the corresponding illustration. It is crucial to evaluate the appropriateness of the task to the specific deficiency. The comprehension check can also be provided through visual materials, for example ordering the pictures chronologically. Phonological awareness activities based on the book may include sound imitation. Anyway, the teacher needs to adapt the tasks to make them adequate to the children’s abilities.

On the whole, literacy and language development is a complicated process. It may seem natural, but it will not be effective without appropriate guidance. It demands particular attention in primary school since it has to become an instrument of further learning. Thus, effective education strategies are the key to further success in literacy and language development.

Leonard, L.B. (2013). Children with specific language impairment (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

McLachlan, C., Nicholson, T., Fielding-Barnsley, R., Mercer, L., & Ohi, S. (2012). Literacy in early childhood and primary education: Issues, challenges, solutions. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

White, E.B. (2015). Charlotte’s web. New York, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers.

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IvyPanda. (2020, September 24). "Charlotte's Web" by White for Literacy Development. https://ivypanda.com/essays/charlottes-web-by-white-for-literacy-development/

""Charlotte's Web" by White for Literacy Development." IvyPanda , 24 Sept. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/charlottes-web-by-white-for-literacy-development/.

IvyPanda . (2020) '"Charlotte's Web" by White for Literacy Development'. 24 September.

IvyPanda . 2020. ""Charlotte's Web" by White for Literacy Development." September 24, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/charlottes-web-by-white-for-literacy-development/.

1. IvyPanda . ""Charlotte's Web" by White for Literacy Development." September 24, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/charlottes-web-by-white-for-literacy-development/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . ""Charlotte's Web" by White for Literacy Development." September 24, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/charlottes-web-by-white-for-literacy-development/.

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