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Copywork
About This Passage
E. B. White sculpts this short passage as a study in parallelism and restraint. The semicolon splits a moral proposition in two: 'Wilbur was modest; fame did not spoil him.' The rhythm mirrors a Stoic aphorism — statement and consequence — while 'mere spider' quietly anchors the reader in the book's central theological claim: salvation often comes through the small.
Some of Wilbur's friends in the barn worried for fear all this attention would go to his head and make him stuck up. But it never did. Wilbur was modest; fame did not spoil him. He still worried some ...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 15 as a critic might describe a quiet interlude in a novel — pay attention to tonal shift, foreshadowing, and the way the chapter ends on a note of understated finality.
Discussion Questions
- Wilbur and Charlotte live in a world where the crickets spread a 'rumor of sadness and change' and a maple tree turns 'bright red with anxiety.' What does the author achieve by locating emotion inside the natural world rather than solely inside his characters?
- The chapter repeatedly distinguishes fame from character. Wilbur is 'modest; fame did not spoil him.' How does this distinction reflect a classical (rather than modern) understanding of virtue, and how does White use Wilbur to argue for it?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
The prevailing estimation of a person's character held by the community.
Item 2
Adaptable to many different activities or fields with facility.
Item 3
To abandon or renounce, especially one who has relied upon you.
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Critical Thinking
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