Preview

E. B. White's Charlotte's Web: A Review

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1555 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
E. B. White's Charlotte's Web: A Review
Project in Religion
(Term Paper)

Hershey R. Martin
IV – St. Albert

Introduction

A friend is someone who falls somewhere between intimate love relationships and casual relationships. In a love relationship the binding force is either kinship or marriage with full sexual priveleges. Casual relationships carry no obligations with them. They are comprised of of next door neighbors or work relationships in which there is brief and superficial contact. Nothing deeply personal is revealed and there is no sense of mutual obligation. People exchange greetings and pleasantries in ways that are polite. On the other hand, friendship relationships are neither sexual nor kinship in nature. However, there is a sense of mutual obligation and friends feel deep emotional ties. More than anything friendship relationships are based on a kind of intimacy. How would you feel if you had to give up a cute little pet? What would you do if a friend's life was in danger? How far would you go to protect someone or something you care about? Discover these answers and more when you read one of the most beloved and well known books of all time, Charlotte's Web! This is a story about friendship, compassion, caring, and loyalty.

Here you will meet Fern, a girl who lives on a farm, Wilbur a tiny, lovable, runt pig, Charlotte, a clever and wise spider, and Templeton, the hungry rat. Come and see how these characters meet and become friends and how one of them will save the life of another.

Summary

Charlotte's Web is a children's novel by American author E. B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams; it was published in 1952 by Harper & Brothers. It features a pig named Wilbur and his spider friend Charlotte who saves him from slaughter. One morning at the breakfast table, eight year old Fern sees her father leave the house with an axe and asks her mother where he's going. Her mother delivers the shocking news that Mr Arable

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor was written by Sally Armstrong and published in 2007. The novel is based in 1775 shortly after people first started to settle in North America for land and improve their lives. It begins on board a boat crossing the ocean from England to the new world then they land in Jamaica for a short time then Charlotte makes her way to west Nova Scotia (present day New Brunswick) where she ends up in three different locations including Baie des Charleurs, Blake Brook and finally ends up along the Tabisintack River. The author’s motivation to write this book was in memory to her distant relative Charlotte Taylor and the first white women to live in the harsh weather of Canada. The history involved in this book is its most interesting part for most readers. This book is a creative non-fiction in the form of a biography because it follows the life of Charlotte Taylor. Life was hard for early settlers of Canada and this novel gives you a first person view of their hardships and that is the message the author is trying to pass on the reader.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Mercer Mayer Author Study

    • 1374 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Kiefer, Barbara. Charlotte Huck 's children 's literature : a brief guide. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2010.…

    • 1374 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Charlotte's Web

    • 629 Words
    • 3 Pages

    (White, 1952, p. 15) Fern is welcomed into the barnyard by the animals because “she was so quiet and friendly”. (White, 1952, p. 15) The other animals in the barn are not very kind to Wilbur and will not play with him and he frequently cries to himself. (White, 1952, p. 30) One night Wilbur hears a voice tell him that she will be his friend in the morning; Wilbur wakes to see that his new friend is a “blood thirsty” spider named Charlotte. (White, 1952, p. 41) Wilbur soon discovers that the Zuckerman’s plan to kill him and have him for dinner once the weather becomes cold, and Charlotte vows to save Wilbur’s life. () The animals in the barn are very fond of Fern, but not so Wilbur. At this point in the story they have no one demanding their respect or asking for them to be a friend to Wilbur. That is until Charlotte comes into the story. Charlotte is poised, calm and wise, and the animals all listen to her. Charlotte becomes a key character in unifying the animals together, with the common purpose of saving Wilbur’s life; additionally, she teaches all the animals what friendship looks like, by being a friend to…

    • 629 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Templeton Stereotypes

    • 1508 Words
    • 7 Pages

    White’s inspirations, “a respect for the absolute rights of human beings everywhere.” Children growing up in a multicultural background easily accept different views, values, and behaviors. With a respect for equality, White hopes to defy society’s prejudice and stereotypes and unite his readers of all ethnicities. At the end of the novel, White narrates the emergence of a new generation unexposed to societal stereotypes soon to be taught by Wilbur: Charlotte’s children. “This is our moment to set forth…we are going out into the world to make webs for ourselves… [to] wherever the wind takes us” (180), the young spiders state. In this beautiful way, Charlotte’s Web urges society’s next generation to make a…

    • 1508 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    OMAM Essay On Friendship

    • 1469 Words
    • 7 Pages

    A friend is somebody who a person can trust and confide in and most people have friends. In…

    • 1469 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The characters in the novel carry symbolic meaning and as the story progresses they come to represent the evils of human nature. Ralph is the protagonist who keeps order on the island and represents the organizational powers of civilization. Nonetheless, his calm and calculated demeanor doesn't prevent him from turning into a savage when times get chaotic. When the boys reenact the hunting of a pig, he is overcome by their savagery and the bloodthirsty environment he finds himself in transforms him into a savage as well. "Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering." (Golding 115). Ralph is known to be a smart and resourceful boy who cares about keeping peace on the island. He often disagrees with Jack when it comes to survival. Jack only cares about remaining in the current situation while Ralph concerns himself with getting rescued. However, when Ralph accompanies the hunters to pretend to hunt a pig, he jabs Robert with a spear, forgetting his…

    • 979 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Susanna Rowson does a great job of depicting the innocence and ignorance of a young woman in Charlotte Temple. Although, she does a greater job of showing the tactics people will use to achieve what they have set their mind to. The title of this work leads you to believe it will be about a character named Charlotte. While it is about her, I understand the story to be more about two other characters, Montreville, a lieutenant in the army, and Mademoiselle LaRue, a teacher at the school Charlotte attends. Though Charlotte maintains a strong role throughout the work, Rowson states in her preface, "…but conscious that I wrote with a mind anxious for the happiness of that sex whose morals and conduct have so powerful an influence on mankind in general…" (Rowson 1362). With this statement Rowson, I believe, is implying that she will venture to disclose the extent people will go to in order to gain what they desire. Montreville and Mademoiselle LaRue, time and time again during the novel, are doing all they can to manipulate Charlotte into doing what they want of her. This is why I believe Charlotte not to be the main character of this story, but simply a "puppet".…

    • 873 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will. - Charlotte Bronte” (“Charlotte Bronte Quotes”). This quote ties in with Charlotte's personal perspectives on life. Bronte believed in being a person who speaks out for what she values most, no matter if her opinion is against the larger majority. “Bronte published her first novel Jane Eyre in 1847 under the manly pseudonym Currer Bell” (Biography.com Editiors). Charlotte's novels have now become classics in today's English literature. Charlotte Bronte was a famous poet and novelist mostly known for contradicting society through her writing and expressing her personal thoughts through the words she produced in her work.…

    • 742 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A friend is someone who stands by someone’s side and cares for them during the…

    • 677 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Faux Friendship

    • 1316 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Friendship is defined by Webster as the state of being friends, friendly relation, or attachment, to a person, or between persons. Webster further states that friendship can also be describe as affection arising from mutual esteem, good will, friendliness, and amity. Friendship is considered to be an essential aspect of everyone’s life, as we are not self sufficient in and of ourselves. Friendship, as the world sees it, is a bond between two individuals that should not involve betrayal but should exhibit each individual as being trustworthy and loyal. In many cases, friendships, despite their necessities, are either forced or morally required to end because several components of the friendship have been ruined. We have substituted face-to face encounters with Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. In William Deresiewicz’s, article “Faux Frienship”, he identifies friendship as “a high calling, demanding extraordinary qualities of character –rooted in virtue” and he supports this perception of friendship by historical events and comparisons of romantic partners, parents and children and friendship in the workplace.…

    • 1316 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Attractiveness: we tend to develop relationships with people who are approximately as attractive as we are (tendency is called the matching hypothesis)…

    • 2285 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    “Friends”, this word has so much depth but what exactly does it mean? A friend is a solid rock that provides assistance in time of need, a listening ear and, a personal support system. Real friendships are rare and far between. The relationship between two friends can last forever and pass on to future generations or can be short lived. Friendships end for a plethora of reasons; some are slow: where the two parties drift apart gradually, while some are abrupt and sudden.…

    • 939 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    For many years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia—and beyond. During about the third year of this trouble I went, in devout faith and some faint stir of hope, to a noted specialist in nervous diseases, the best known in the country. This wise man put me to bed and applied the rest cure, to which a still good physique responded so promptly that he concluded that there was nothing much the matter with me, and sent me home with solemn advice to 'live as domestic a life as possible,' to 'have but two hours' intelligent life a day,' and 'never to touch pen, brush or pencil again as long as I lived.' This was in 1887…"…

    • 610 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Friendship Definition

    • 668 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “Friendship.” Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Credo Reference. Web. 05 November 2012.…

    • 668 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wuthering Heights Analysis

    • 1548 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Wuthering Heights written by Emily Bronte. Bronte takes you on a bunch of adventures throughout this book. The book starts out with Heathcliff on the side of the road as a orphan. The Earnshaws adopted him but the other kids got very jealous of the attention he was getting from the parents. After a little bit, Catherine starts to bond with heathcliff and they grow close together. In the middle, Catherine decides to marry Edgar for his money and leave Heathcliff heartbroken. With Heatcliff crushed, he moves away and gets marry to Isabella for revenge. Poor Isabella doesn't realize how much a monster Heathcliff is into she sees him hanging her dog. Heathcliff doesn't love Isabella and tortures her throughout the whole book so she can feel the pain catherine caused Heathcliff. At the end Catherine dies but has a kid and Heathcliff wants her to marry Linton so Heathcliff can get the money and the property. Heathcliff dies a lonely man with nobody to love him. I chose Heathcliff to write about because so much happened to him in the book. Heathcliff expresses so much feelings and heartbreak throughout the book that you become a part with him. Heathcliff shows signs of conduct disorder, bipolar disorder and PTSD and needs to get help for his anger issues.…

    • 1548 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics