Charlotte's Web — Chapter 12

Narration Prompt

Narrate Chapter 12 as a study in the varieties of purposeful speech — Charlotte's formal meeting with its comic roll call, her editorial workshop on what the next web should say, the sheep's interest-based persuasion of Templeton, and Charlotte's final caretaking instruction to Wilbur. Attend to how each movement selects a different rhetorical register for a different purpose, and how White calibrates form to end.

Discussion Questions

1. Analyze Charlotte's claim that 'People believe almost anything they see in print' as both the operating theory of her rescue and a piece of open self-incrimination. Consider how White complicates any purely cynical reading by placing the observation in the mouth of the character who is simultaneously the chapter's moral center and its most effective deceiver, and argue for a position on whether frank avowal of the flaw being exploited improves the ethics of Charlotte's plan, worsens it, or leaves it unchanged.
2. Examine the oldest sheep's stated method — 'I'll appeal to his baser instincts' — against the actual speech he delivers to Templeton, which rests on the factual chain that Wilbur's food is Templeton's food. Consider whether appealing to accurate self-interest counts as an appeal to 'baser instincts' in a morally pejorative sense, or whether the sheep is honoring Templeton's rationality by speaking to the argument that is actually true about his life; defend a specific reading and engage seriously with the opposing view.

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide