Charlotte's Web — Chapter 22

About This Passage

Selected because this is the scene in which Charlotte's children announce their own independence in their own language. The passage holds three vocabulary words (frantic, aeronauts, updraft) and shows White's gift for placing a child's panic alongside an adult's calm explanation without mocking either.

Narration Prompt

Summarize Chapter 22 in your own analytical terms: Wilbur's homecoming with the medal and the egg sac, the long winter of patient guardianship, the spring hatching of five hundred and fourteen spiders, the dramatic balloon departure on the warm updraft, the three daughters — Joy, Aranea, and Nellie — who remain, Wilbur's solemn pledge, and the concluding tribute naming Charlotte as both a true friend and a good writer.

Discussion Questions

1. Through the whole winter, Wilbur watches over the egg sac, lying so his breath will warm it on the coldest nights, and the text tells us nothing else mattered. Analyze how White uses this winter of patient guardianship to close the arc that began with Wilbur as a helpless runt. What transformation in Wilbur's character does the author present through the simple acts of sac-tending, and why does White choose patience — rather than some more dramatic act — as the measure of that change?
2. When the baby spiders announce We are aeronauts and we are going out into the world to make webs for ourselves, White gives them the adult vocabulary of setting forth. Examine the author's choice to speak through these young spiders in this particular register. Why does White resist sentimentalizing the departure or keeping the children home for Wilbur's comfort? What is the author saying about the proper relationship between love and leave-taking?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide