Preview
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Reconstruct the chapter's argument in order: the night that will not pass, the hush before dawn, the failed summons, the meeting with its translated greeting, the demonstration on the fly, and the staged defense — necessity, heredity, ecology — that ends with Wilbur half-persuaded. Track which of Charlotte's arguments move Wilbur and which leave him unmoved, and end by naming who in the barn holds the knowledge that would change the whole conversation.
Discussion Questions
- More than half the chapter passes before anyone says 'Salutations!' — the wakeful night, then the inventory of stillness: 'The barn was still dark. The sheep lay motionless. Even the goose was quiet.' Why might White make the reader wait through all of it alongside Wilbur instead of opening at the meeting? Use the details of the night's sequence and the failed summonses to explain what the long delay does to the meeting's weight.
- Wilbur holds his verdict — 'It's cruel,' replied Wilbur, who did not intend to be argued out of his position — and Charlotte stops defending her web and turns the comparison on him: 'You have your meals brought to you in a pail. Nobody feeds me.' Why might she answer a moral verdict with a comparison of how the two of them eat? Use the words of her reply to explain what this turn does that another defense of the web could not.
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Critical Thinking
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