Charlotte's Web — Chapter 21

Narration Prompt

Before the discussion, briefly retrace the chapter's arc: Charlotte's seasonal valediction to Wilbur, her philosophical defense of friendship as a tremendous thing, the disclosure that she will not return to the barn, Templeton's transactional rescue of the egg sac, the silent wink-and-wave farewell, and White's austere closing sentences on the emptied fairground.

Discussion Questions

1. Charlotte's long speech to Wilbur names autumn days, Christmas, winter snows, the song sparrow, the frogs, and the warm wind. What is the rhetorical and ethical function of this seasonal liturgy, and why does White give the dying Charlotte a cadence of benediction rather than a cadence of grief? How does the form of the catalog do work that its content alone could not?
2. When Wilbur asks Charlotte why she did so much for him, she refuses the calculus of desert and answers: You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. What ethical and philosophical position is Charlotte articulating here, and how does it sit against utilitarian, Aristotelian, or Christian frameworks of virtue that a reader might bring to the text?

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