Charlotte's Web

For the entirety of Charlotte’s Web, the inevitability of death and the fleeting nature of life are ever-present concepts. The novel begins as Fern asserts her belief in justice and saves Wilbur from being slaughtered as a runt piglet. As Wilbur grows up, he is exposed to the possibility of his own premature death when the old sheep informs him that he could be slaughtered for Christmas dinner. He regularly considers the fact that he could lose the beautiful and comfortable farm and his friends at any moment. Wilbur’s best friend, Charlotte, is duly aware of the impermanence of her own life and that she will not live long. Unlike Wilbur, Charlotte is more accepting of this inevitability in herself, but cannot accept the idea of Wilbur dying young and thus sets out to save him and prop herself up out of the mediocrity of her short life as a spider. In the end, Charlotte’s life is short, but full of meaning and value.

The seasons change quickly as Wilbur grows up on the farm. Life, time, and nature press forward, and each season is signaled with the call of an animal. The birds announce the coming of summer with their songs and the crickets announce the coming of fall and Charlotte’s death with their chirping. Life on the farm is simple but imbued by an irreplaceable natural beauty that Wilbur observes regularly around him. Wilbur considers the farm to be the greatest place on earth: “his 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” (183). He dislikes change, and panics whenever the thought of losing the farm, or one of his friends, creeps into his mind. When Wilbur escapes his pen one spring day, the goose encourages him to run into the woods and seize his life as a pig: “root up everything! Eat grass! Look for corn!” (17). Wilbur hesitates, though, and ultimately trades his freedom for the comfort and safety of the farm and his friends. He has an innate sense that he is more likely to be able to experience the beauty of life if he stays there.

There are only two humans who fully understand the beauty and miracle of the nature around them: Fern and Doctor Dorian. Although Fern eventually grows out of her passion for Wilbur and the farm, she spends much of her summer completely enthralled with it. Fern is the only one who hears the animals talk, and she sees them in a way that nobody else does. When Mrs. Arable tells Doctor Dorian of her concern that Fern is spending too much time at the farm, he remarks, “How enchanting! […] It must be real nice and quiet down there” (107). Doctor Dorian also points out to Mrs. Arable that the feat of spinning a web without ever having been taught how to do so is remarkable, with or without the words woven into it, noting how nobody else seems to realize this. Mrs. Arable is skeptical, admitting that she does not like things she cannot understand. Even the words in the web themselves do not convince most of the humans to stop and pay closer attention to nature or their fleeting lives; instead, they attribute what they witness to a miracle.

When rumor spreads that Wilbur could be slaughtered soon, Charlotte is not the only one who rallies for him. All the animals are on Wilbur’s side, and hope that Charlotte’s plan will succeed. As Charlotte articulates: “Your success in the ring this morning was, to a small degree, my success, [Wilbur]” (164). If Wilbur survives, then the ever-so-short lives of many of the other farm animals will be part of that success. Even Templeton, who is by nature a selfish rat, is unable to dissuade himself from wanting to see Wilbur survive. Charlotte wants to save Wilbur for his own sake, but she also wants to save him to insert meaning and value into her own short and simple life. Although she will not be alive to see the next spring, she can take comfort in knowing that Wilbur will. Furthermore, she knows that her children and grandchildren will be cared for by Wilbur for years to come.