Charlotte's Web
Charlotte's
Web is a children's novel
by American author E. B. White
and illustrated by Garth Williams;
it was published on October 15, 1952, by Harper & Brothers. The novel tells the story of a livestock pig
named Wilbur and his friendship with a barn
spider named Charlotte. When Wilbur is in
danger of being slaughtered
by the farmer, Charlotte writes messages praising Wilbur (such as "Some
Pig") in her web in order to persuade the farmer to let him live.
Written
in White's dry, low-key manner, Charlotte's Web is considered a classic
of children's literature, enjoyable to adults as well as children. The
description of the experience of swinging on a rope swing at the farm is an
often cited example of rhythm in writing, as the pace of the sentences reflects
the motion of the swing. In 2000, Publishers
Weekly listed the book as the best-selling
children's paperback of all time.[1]
Charlotte's
Web was adapted into an animated feature by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Sagittarius Productions in 1973. Paramount released a direct-to-video sequel,
Charlotte's Web 2:
Wilbur's Great Adventure,
in the U.S. in 2003 (Universal released the film internationally). A live-action film version of E. B. White's original story was released in 2006. A video game based on this adaptation was also released in 2006.
Plot summary
After
a little girl named Fern Arable pleads for the life of the runt of a litter of piglets, one spring morning, her father
gives her the pig to nurture, and she names him Wilbur. She treats him as a
pet, but a month later, no longer small, Wilbur is sold to Fern's uncle, Homer
Zuckerman. In Zuckerman's barnyard Wilbur yearns for companionship but is snubbed
by the other animals. He is befriended by a barn
spider named Charlotte, whose web sits in
a doorway overlooking Wilbur's enclosure. When Wilbur discovers that he is
being raised for slaughter, she promises to hatch a plan guaranteed to spare
his life. Fern often sits on a stool, listening to the animals' conversation,
but over the course of the story, as she starts to mature, she begins to find
other interests.
As
the summer passes, Charlotte ponders the question of how to save Wilbur. At
last, she comes up with a plan, which she proceeds to implement. Reasoning that
Zuckerman would not kill a famous pig, Charlotte weaves words or short phrases
in praise of Wilbur into her web, making the barn, and pig, a tourist
attraction, with the web believed to be a miracle. At the county fair, to which
he is accompanied by Charlotte and the rat Templeton, Wilbur fails to win the
blue ribbon, but is awarded a special prize by the judges. Charlotte, by then
dying as barn spiders do in the fall, hears the presentation over the public
address system and knows that the prize means Zuckerman will cherish Wilbur for
as long as the pig lives, and will never slaughter him for his meat. She does
not return to the farm with Wilbur and Templeton, remaining at the fairgrounds
to die, but allows Wilbur to take with him her egg sac, from which her children
will hatch in the spring.
Wilbur
waits out the winter, a winter he would not have survived but for Charlotte.
Delighted when the tiny spiders hatch, he is devastated when most leave the
barn. Three remain to take up residence in Charlotte's old doorway. Pleased at
finding new friends, Wilbur names one of them Nellie, while the remaining two
name themselves Joy and Aranea. Further generations of spiders keep him company
in subsequent years.
Characters
- Wilbur is a thanatophobic, rambunctious pig, the runt of his litter. He is often strongly emotional.
- Charlotte A. Cavatica, or simply Charlotte, is a spider who befriends Wilbur. In some passages, she is the heroine of the story.[2]
- John Arable: Wilbur's first owner.
- Fern Arable, John's daughter, who adopts Wilbur when he's a piglet, and later visits him. She is the only human in the story capable of understanding nonhuman conversation.
- Templeton is a rat who helps Charlotte and Wilbur only when offered food. He serves as a somewhat caustic, self-serving comic relief to the plot.
- Avery Arable is the elder brother of Fern and John's son. Like Templeton, he is a source of comic relief.
- Homer Zuckerman is Fern’s uncle who keeps Wilbur in his barn. He has a wife, Edith, and an assistant named Lurvy.
- Other animals in Zuckerman’s barn, with whom Wilbur converses, are a disdainful lamb, a talkative goose, and an intelligent "old sheep".
- Henry Fussy is a boy of Fern’s age, of whom Fern becomes fond.
- Dr. Dorian is the family physician/psychologist consulted by Fern's mother and something of a wise old man character.
- Uncle is a large pig whom Charlotte disdains for coarse manners and Wilbur’s rival at the fair.
- Charlotte's children are the 514 children of Charlotte. Although they were born at the barn, all but three of them (Aranea, Joy, and Nellie) go their own ways by ballooning.
Themes
Death
Death is a major theme seen throughout Charlotte's Web and
is brought forth by that of the spider, Charlotte's web. According to Norton D. Kinghorn, Charlotte's web acts as a
barrier that separates two worlds. These worlds are that of life and death.[3] Scholar Amy Ratelle says that through Charlotte's continual
killing and eating of flies
throughout the novel, White makes the concept of death normal for Wilbur and
for the readers.[4] Neither Wilbur nor the rat Templeton see death as a part of
their lives; Templeton sees it only as something that will happen at some time
in the distant future, while Wilbur views it as the end of everything.[5]
Wilbur
constantly has death on his mind at night when he is worrying over whether or
not he will be slaughtered.[6] Even though Wilbur is able to escape his death, Charlotte,
the spider who takes care of Wilbur, is not able to escape her own death.
Charlotte passes away, but according to Trudelle H. Thomas, "Yet even in
the face of death, life continues and ultimate goodness wins out".[7] Jordan Anne Deveraux explains that E.B. White discusses a
few realities of death. From the novel, readers learn that death can be
delayed, but it cannot be avoided forever.[8]
Change
For
Norton D. Kinghorn, Charlotte's web also acts as a signifier of change. The
change Kinghorn refers to is that of both the human world and the farm/barn
world. For both of these worlds change is something that cannot be avoided.[3] Along with the changing of the seasons throughout the novel, the characters also go through their
own changes. Jordan Anne Deveraux also explains that Wilbur and Fern each go
through their changes to transition from childhood closer to adulthood throughout the novel.[8] This is evidenced by Wilbur accepting death and Fern giving
up her dolls. Wilbur grows throughout the novel, allowing him to become the
caretaker of Charlotte's children just as she was a caretaker for him, as is
explained by scholar Sue Misheff.[9] But rather than accept the changes that are forced upon
them, according to Sophie Mills, the characters aim to go beyond the limits of
change.[6] In a different way, Wilbur goes through a change when he
switches locations. Amy Ratelle explains that when he moves from Fern's house
to Homer Zuckerman's farm, Wilbur goes from being a loved pet to a farm animal.
Innocence
Fern,
the little girl in the novel, goes from being a child to being more of an
adult. As she goes through this change, Kinghorn notes that it can also be
considered a fall from innocence.[3] Wilbur also starts out young and innocent at the beginning
of the novel. A comparison is drawn between the innocence and youth of Fern and
Wilbur. Sophie Mills states that the two characters can identify with one
another.[6] Both Wilbur and Fern are, at first, horrified by the
realization that life must end; however, by the end of the novel, both
characters learn to accept that everything must die.[8] According to Matthew Scully, the novel presents the
difference in the worldview of adults versus the world view of children.
Children, such as Fern, believe killing another for food is wrong, while adults
have learned to justify this action.[10]
History
Charlotte's
Web was published three years after
White began writing it.[11] White's editor Ursula
Nordstrom said that one day in 1952, E. B.
White arrived at her office and handed her a new manuscript, the only copy of Charlotte's
Web then in existence, which she read soon after and enjoyed.[12] Charlotte's Web was released on October 15, 1952.[13][14][15]
Since
White published Death of a Pig in 1948,[16]
an account of his own failure to save a sick pig (bought for butchering), Charlotte's
Web can be seen as White's attempt "to save his pig in
retrospect".[17] White's overall motivation for the book has not been
revealed and he has written "I haven't told why I wrote the book, but I
haven't told you why I sneeze, either. A book is a sneeze".[18]
When
White met the spider who originally inspired Charlotte, he called her Charlotte
Epeira (after Epeira sclopetaria, the Grey Cross spider, now known as Larinioides sclopetarius), before discovering that the more modern name for that
genus was Aranea.[19] In the novel, Charlotte gives her full name as
"Charlotte A. Cavatica", revealing her as a barn
spider, an orb-weaver with the scientific name Araneus cavaticus.
The
arachnid anatomical terms (mentioned in the beginning of chapter nine) and
other information that White used, came mostly from American Spiders by Willis
J. Gertsch and The Spider Book by John Henry Comstock,
both of which combine a sense of poetry with scientific fact.[20] White incorporated details from Comstock's accounts of baby
spiders, most notably the "flight" of the young spiders on silken
parachutes.[20] White sent Gertsch’s book to illustrator Garth Williams.[21] Williams’ initial drawings depicted a spider with a woman’s
face, and White suggested that he simply draw a realistic spider instead.[22]
White
originally opened the novel with an introduction of Wilbur and the barnyard
(which later became the third chapter) but decided to begin the novel by
introducing Fern and her family on the first page.[21] White’s publishers were at one point concerned with the
book’s ending and tried to get White to change it.[23]
Charlotte's
Web has become White's most famous
book; but White treasured his privacy and that of the farmyard and barn that
helped inspire the novel, which have been kept off limits to the public
according to his wishes.[24]
Reception
Charlotte's
Web was generally well-reviewed when it
was released. In The New York Times, Eudora
Welty wrote, "As a piece of work it
is just about perfect, and just about magical in the way it is done."[25] Aside from its paperback sales, Charlotte's Web is
78th on the all-time bestselling hardback book list. According to publicity for
the 2006 film adaptation (see below), the book has sold more than 45 million
copies and been translated into 23 languages. It was a Newbery
Honor book for 1953, losing to Secret of the Andes by Ann
Nolan Clark for the medal. In 1970, White won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, a major prize in the field of children's literature, for Charlotte's
Web, along with his first children's book, Stuart
Little, published in 1945. Seth Lerer, in
his book Children’s Literature, finds that Charlotte represents female
authorship and creativity, and compares her to other female characters in
children’s literature such as Jo March in Little
Women and Mary Lennox in The
Secret Garden.[26] Nancy Larrick brings to attention the "startling note
of realism" in the opening line, "Where's Papa going with that
Ax?"[27]
Illustrator
Henry Cole expressed his deep childhood appreciation of the characters
and story, and calls Garth Williams' illustrations full of “sensitivity,
warmth, humor, and intelligence.”[28] Illustrator Diana Cain Bluthenthal states that Williams'
illustrations inspired and influenced her.[29]
There
is an unabridged audio book read by White himself which reappeared decades
after it had originally been recorded.[30] Newsweek writes that White reads the story
"without artifice and with a mellow charm," and that "White also
has a plangency that will make you weep, so don't listen (at least, not to the
sad parts) while driving."[30] Joe Berk, president of Pathway Sound, had recorded Charlotte's
Web with White in White’s neighbor's house in Maine (which Berk describes
as an especially memorable experience) and released the book in LP.[31] Bantam released Charlotte’s Web alongside Stuart
Little on CD in 1991, digitally remastered, having acquired the two of them
for rather a large amount.[31]
In
2005, a school teacher in California conceived of a project for her class in
which they would send out hundreds of drawings of spiders (each representing
Charlotte’s child Aranea going out into the world so that she can return and
tell Wilbur of what she has seen) with accompanying letters; they ended up
visiting a large number of parks, monuments, and museums, and were hosted by
and/or prompted responses from celebrities and politicians such as John
Travolta and then-First Lady Laura
Bush.[32]
In
2003 Charlotte's Web was listed at number 170 on the BBC's The
Big Read poll of the UK's 200
"best-loved novels."[33] A 2004 study found that Charlotte's Web was a common
read-aloud book for third-graders in schools in San Diego County, California.[34] Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education
Association named the book one of its
"Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children."[35] It was one of the "Top 100 Chapter Books" of all
time in a 2012 poll by School Library Journal.[36]
In
2010, the New York Public Library reported that Charlotte's Web was the sixth most
borrowed book in the library's history.[37]
Its
awards and nominations include:
- Newbery Honor Book (1953)[38]
- Horn Book Fanfare (1953)[39]
- Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal (1970) (awarded to White for his children's books: Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little)
- Massachusetts Children's Book Award (1984)[40]
Adaptations
Film
The
book was adapted into an animated feature of the same
name in 1973 by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Sagittarius Productions with a score by the Sherman
Brothers. In 2003, a direct-to-video sequel of that film, Charlotte's Web 2:
Wilbur's Great Adventure, was released by Paramount Pictures.
In 2006, Paramount Pictures, with Walden
Media, Kerner Entertainment Company, and Nickelodeon Movies,
produced a live-action/animated adaptation starring Dakota
Fanning as Fern and the voice of Julia
Roberts as Charlotte, released on December
15, 2006.
Stage
Main article: Charlotte's Web (musical)
Video game
Main article: Charlotte's Web (video game)
A
video
game of the 2006 film was developed by Backbone Entertainment and published by THQ and Sega,
and released on December 12, 2006, for the Game
Boy Advance, Nintendo
DS, PlayStation
2 and PC.
References
· "Paperback".
Factmonster.com. Retrieved 2014-05-25.
· · Kinghorn, Norton
D. (Spring 1986). "The Real Miracle of Charlotte's Web". Children's
Literature Association Quarterly. 11 (1): 4–9. doi:10.1353/chq.0.0418. ISSN 1553-1201.
· · Ratelle, Amy
(2014). "Ethics and Edibility in Charlotte's Web". The Lion and the
Unicorn. 38 (3): 327–341. doi:10.1353/uni.2014.0026. ISSN 1080-6563.
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