Skip to main content

Can we determine the characters in Charlotte's web by their appearances? Please explain and give examples from the book?(250-300words)

It is possibly true that at least some of the human characters in Charlotte's Web can be determined by their appearances. Fern's family: her brother, parents, and extended family who live nearby, behave and speak pretty much the way one would expect farmers of that era and place to behave.


The animal characters in Charlotte's Web, however, cannot necessarily be determined by their appearances.


One would not expect that a spider, a pig, and a rat would have much intelligence and emotion (at least intelligence and emotion as we humans perceive it) Yet, they do! 


Charlotte's physical appearance as a spider, is so inconspicous, that humans would hardly notice her. Yet, she was capable of great things, especially for Wilbur, the pig.


Wilbur, the pig, while certainly big enough to be noticed by animals and humans alike, was helpless to change his situation. Until Charlotte took pity  intervened for him, he was destined to become bacon and pork roasts by the time the first snowflake would fall in the coming winter.


Charlotte, by expertly spinning her webs, and supernaturally knowing how to spell the words used in her webs, defied her physical appearance. 


To the humans in the story, it was nothing short of magic that Charlotte could spell out the words "Some Pig" in her webs as a description of Wilbur. 


Another thing that shows that the characters cannot be defined by their physical appearances is that the animals in this story converse freely. Fern, although a human girl, witnesses and understands this, her family and community members do not.


Ultimately, Charlotte saves Wilbur from being slaughtered because she let the world know that he was extraordinary, and because of that Fern's family allowed Wilbur to live out a natural life and was not slaughtered for meat to sell and feed their family.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more