Preview
Copywork
About This Passage
Selected because this is the hinge of the chapter — the moment Charlotte admits she is dying and Wilbur's grief crashes against her composure. The passage holds three vocabulary words (spinnerets, desolation, ridiculous) and shows White's technique of pairing Wilbur's desperate prose with Charlotte's clipped, practical replies.
"I'm done for," she replied. "In a day or two I'll be dead. I haven't even strength enough to climb down into the crate. I doubt if I have enough silk in my spinnerets to lower me to the ground." Hear...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize the central movement of Chapter 21: Charlotte's seasonal speech assuring Wilbur of his future, her quiet revelation that she is dying, Wilbur's urgent plan to save the egg sac, Templeton's negotiation for first rights at the trough, and the silent wink-and-wave farewell.
Discussion Questions
- Charlotte's parting speech to Wilbur is structured almost like a liturgy of seasons — autumn leaves, Christmas, winter snows, the song sparrow, the frogs, the warm wind. Why does White choose this seasonal pattern rather than a direct statement of love? What does Charlotte give Wilbur through this catalog of future sights and sounds and smells?
- When Wilbur protests, I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you, Charlotte dismisses the question of deserving and answers instead that friendship itself is a tremendous thing. Why does Charlotte reject the moral logic of deserving? What ethic of friendship is White proposing through her answer?
+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide
Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Extraordinarily great in amount, importance, or intensity; remarkable and striking.
Item 2
A state of complete emptiness, ruin, or anguished loneliness.
Item 3
The small tube-like organs on a spider's abdomen from which silk is produced.
+ 5 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
+ 6 more questions in the complete study guide
Get the complete study guide — free
Sign up and get your first book with every chapter included. Copywork, discussion questions, vocabulary, and critical thinking.
Sign up free