Tuesday, November 8, 2011

EB White excerpt from Charlotte’s Web

I love this book, it was one of the first ones i remember my mother reading to me. I always cried when mom would tell me the part about Charlotte dying. I never understood why she had to die.

When reading it again at my age now i feel like she was a representation of the circle of life. She dies and Wilbur goes on to live because of her really. She survived her "purpose" in life and was okay with dying. I think that the way it is portrayed in a child's book is not graphic or bad. The book does not go into great detail about her death but i feel like it does play a big role in the making of the story. She was in it for a reason and she was taken out for a reason.

I can relate this to some of what we have been reading because of the circle of life theme. We have seen that in some way in almost everything we have been reading lately. It really surprised me that in rereading this i found new and interesting details that i did not see the first time i read this. I know it does have some to do with my age but it was still nice to re read and think about things in a different light.

The character that i never cared for was Templeton. How he acts in the story can be closely related to how we act as humans. We are all about ourselves and what we want. We do not do things just to do them, we do them so that we can get something out of it. There is a part where Charlotte tells Wilbur that she does all this for him because he is a friend. Is that a good enough? He never really has to work or do much of anything but yet he is getting praised for it all. What does that say about Charlotte?

There is also a part where Templeton turns his back on Charlotte and Wilbur because he chooses fair food over helping Wilbur when Charlotte's babies are born. What does this say about the rat? Is he portrayed as a rat on purpose? Does that have a role in the way his character acts? I think that it does, i think that him being a rat was on purpose.

All and all i feel like death is portrayed a certain way becuse it is a childs book. If it was written for adults i feel like the story would have been much different.

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