Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Charlotte’s Web, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Friendship and Sacrifice
Mortality and Rebirth
The Natural World
Growing Up
Summary
Analysis
Over the next few weeks, Fern dotes on Wilbur and shows him love, devotion, and attention. She feeds him before she eats at each meal, and as the days get warmer and Wilbur moves from his carton in the kitchen to a large wooden box full of straw outside, she spends hours sitting with him, “enchanted” by his every move. She sees the pig as her “baby,” and often even puts him in her little toy carriage and pushes him around with her dolls.
The happy days roll past quickly, and soon Wilbur is five weeks old. Summer is coming, and Wilbur has grown large. Mr. Arable has begun to feel that Wilbur is becoming a burden to feed and house, and Mrs. Arable suggests Fern sell Wilbur to their neighbors and relatives, the Zuckermans—Fern’s Uncle Homer often raises pigs. Fern agrees to the arrangement, and sells Wilbur to Homer and Edith Zuckerman for six dollars. Fern vows to visit Wilbur at his new home as often as she can.
Nature always runs its course, and soon Fern is reminded that as much as she’d like her little pig to be a real baby, it is, at the end of the day, an animal. Fern promises to continue caring for Wilbur just as intensely and to not let distance come between them.
Themes
