Charlotte's Web
 Book cover | |
| Author | E. B. White |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Garth Williams |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
Publication date | 1952 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 192 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-06-028298-3 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
Charlotte's Web is an award-winning children's book by acclaimed American author E. B. White, about a pig named Wilbur who is saved from being slaughtered by an intelligent spider named Charlotte. First published in 1952, it tells the story of a pig named Wilbur and his friendship with a barn spider named Charlotte, in which Charlotte writes messages praising Wilbur (such as "Some Pig") in her web in order to persuade the farmer not to slaughter him. The book was illustrated by Garth Williams.
In the book, Wilbur is the pet piglet of a young girl named Fern Arable. Unfortunately, when he grows into an adult pig, Fern is forced to take him to the Zuckerman farm, where he will be prepared as dinner in due time.
Charlotte A. Cavatica, a spider, lives in the space above Wilbur's sty in the Zuckermans' barn; she befriends Wilbur and decides to help prevent him from being eaten. With the help of the other barn animals, including a rat named Templeton, she convinces the Zuckerman family that Wilbur is special by spelling out such descriptions as "Some Pig" in her web.
Written in White's dry, low-key manner, Charlotte's Web is considered a classic of children's literature, enjoyable to adults as well as children. The description of the experience of swinging on a rope swing at the farm is an often cited example of rhythm in writing, as the pace of the sentences reflects the motion of the swing. Publishers Weekly listed the book as the best-selling children's paperback of all time as of 2000.[1]
"Charlotte's Web" was made into an animated feature by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Paramount Pictures in 1973. Paramount released a direct-to-video sequel, Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure, in the US in 2003 (Universal released the film internationally). A live-action film version of E. B. White's original story was released on December 15, 2006. A video game of this adaption was also released on December 12.
Plot summary
The book begins when John Arable's sow gives birth to a litter of piglets, and Mr. Arable discovers one of them is a runt and decides to kill it. However, his eight year old daughter Fern begs him to let it live. Therefore her father gives it to Fern as a pet, and she names the piglet Wilbur. Wilbur is hyperactive and always exploring new things. He lives with Fern for a few weeks and then is sold to her uncle, Homer Zuckerman. Although Fern visits him at the Zuckermans' farm as often as she can, Wilbur gets lonelier day after day. Eventually, a warm and soothing voice tells him that she is going to be his friend. The next day, he wakes up and meets his new friend, Charlotte: the grey spider. Charlotte gives her full name as "Charlotte A. Cavatica", revealing her as a barn spider, an orb-weaver with the scientific name Araneus cavaticus.
Wilbur soon becomes a member of the community of animals who live in the cellar of Zuckerman's barn. When the old sheep in the barn cellar tells Wilbur that he is going to be killed and eaten at Christmas, he turns to Charlotte for help. Charlotte has the idea of writing words in her web extolling Wilbur's excellence ("some pig", "terrific", "radiant", and eventally "humble"), reasoning that if she can make Wilbur sufficiently famous, he will not be killed. Thanks to Charlotte's efforts, Wilbur not only lives, but goes to the county fair with Charlotte and wins a prize. Due to the short lifespan of spiders, Charlotte dies at the fair. Wilbur repays Charlotte by bringing home with him the sac of eggs (her "magnum opus") she had laid at the fair before dying. When Charlotte's eggs hatch at Zuckerman's farm, most of them leave to make their own lives elsewhere, except for three: Joy, Aranea, Nellie, who remain there as friends to Wilbur.
History
White's editor Ursula Nordstrom said that one day, in 1952, E.B. White handed her a new manuscript out of the blue, the only version of Charlotte's web then in existence, which she read soon after and was hugely impressed with.[2]
Since E. B. White published Death of a Pig in 1948, an account of how he failed to save a sick pig (which had been bought in order to be fattened up and butchered), Charlotte’s Web can be seen as White attempting "to save his pig in retrospect."[3]
When White met the spider who originally inspired Charlotte, he called her Charlotte Epeira (after Epeira sclopetaria, the Grey Cross spider, now known as Aranea sericata), later discovering that the more modern name for that genus was Aranea. [4]
The anatomical terms (such as those mentioned in the beginning of chapter nine) and other information that White used came mostly from American Spiders by Willis J. Gertsch and The Spider Book by John Henry Comstock, both of which combine a sense of poetry with scientific fact.[5] White incorporated details from Comstock's accounts of baby spiders, most notably the "flight" of the young spiders and also the way one of them climbs to the top of a fence before launching itself into the air.[5] White sent Gertsch’s book to Illustrator Garth Williams.[6] Williams’ initial drawings depicted a spider with a woman’s face, and White suggested that he simply draw a realistic spider instead. [7]
White originally opened the novel with an introduction of Wilbur and the barnyard (which later became the third chapter), but then decided to begin the novel from a human perspective by introducing Fern and her family on the very first page.[6] White’s publishers were at one point concerned with the book’s ending and tried to get White to change it.[8]
Characters
Wilbur the pig
Wilbur is curious and sad to leave Fern at first, yet adapt to the environment and life in the barn. However, he now faces the threat of being eaten for Christmas.
Charlotte A. Cavatica
Charlotte is the spider that saves Wilbur from being butchered by weaving her talents into her spider webs. She seems very blood-thirsty and hideous to the other animals at first, but then proves them wrong by saving Wilbur. Her appearance matches a real spider in the 2006 version of the story, whereas she was anthropomorphous and much prettier in the 1973 version.
Templeton the Rat
Templeton is a glutton rat who helps out Charlotte and Wilbur only because he is promised food.
Templeton serves as a somewhat caustic, self-serving comic relief in the plot, which otherwise has a predominance of warm, loving, and positive personalities.
Templeton was instructed by Charlotte to find words for her to weave in her web in order to save Wilbur the pig from being slaughtered.
In the 1973 animated version, Templeton's voice is played by Paul Lynde, who performs "A Veritable Smorgasbord" an ode to overindulgence and gluttony.
The 2006 film features Steve Buscemi as the voice for Templeton. In this version, he refers to himself as "the rat". Throughout this version, he is chased by two crows, Elwyn and Brooks.
Elwyn and Brooks
Elwyn and Brooks are two crows that appear throughout the 2006 film. Their names are actually puns of the author's real name, Elwyn Brooks. They also chase Templeton throughout the film.
Fern Arable
Fern is the courageous girl who saves the runt. She is about twelve in the 2006 version, whereas she was fourteen in the 1973 version and eight in the book.
There are many other characters in the 2006 film, including Ike the Hourse, Gussey the Goose, Betsy and Bitsy the cows, and more.
Reception
Charlotte's Web was generally well-reviewed when it was released. In the New York Times, Eudora Welty wrote, "As a piece of work it is just about perfect, and just about magical in the way it is done."[9] Aside from its paperback sales, Charlotte's Web is 78th on the all-time bestselling hardback book list. According to publicity for the 2006 film adaptation (see below), the book has sold more than 45 million copies and been translated into 23 languages. It was a Newbery Honors book for 1953, losing to Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark for the medal. In 1970, White won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, a major prize in the field of children's literature, for Charlotte's Web, along with his first children's book, Stuart Little, published in 1945.
Maria Nikolajeva (in her book The Rhetoric of Character in Children's Literature) calls the opening of the novel a failure, because, she states, the animals' story cannot be satisfactorily viewed as an allegory to human life because of the novel's begun and then abandoned human dimension.[10] Seth Lerer, in his book Children’s Literature, finds that Charlotte represents female authorship and creativity, and compares her to other female characters in children’s literature such as Jo March in Little Women and Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden’’.[11]
Film adaptations
1973 version
The book was adapted into an animated feature by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Sagittarius Productions in 1973 with a song score by the Sherman Brothers.
2003 sequel
This is the sequel to the 1973 film, released direct-to-video by Paramount Pictures.
2006 version
Paramount Pictures, with Walden Media, Kerner Entertainment Company, and Nickelodeon Movies, produced a live-action/animated film starring Dakota Fanning as Fern and the voice of Julia Roberts as Charlotte, released on December 15, 2006.
Video game
A video game of the 2006 film was developed by Backbone Entertainment and published by THQ and Sega, and released on December 12, 2006 for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Playstation 2 and PC.
Printed editions and ISBN numbers
- ISBN 0060263857 (hardcover, 1952)
- ISBN 0060263865 (library binding, 1952)
- ISBN 0064400557 (paperback, 1974)
- ISBN 0606026282 (prebound, 1980)
- ISBN 0871292432 (paperback, 1983)
- ISBN 0061070106 (paperback, 1990)
- ISBN 1561376302 (hardcover, 1998)
- ISBN 1561370266 (hardcover, 1999)
- ISBN 1581180500 (library binding, 1999, Large Type Edition)
- ISBN 0064410935 (paperback, 2001)
- ISBN 0758701780 (hardcover, 2002)
- ISBN 0060006986 (hardcover, 2002, 50th Anniversary Edition)
- ISBN 0807283053 (paperback)
Titles in other languges
- Azerbaijani: Şarlottanın Toru
- Chinese: 夏洛特的网 (Charlotte's Net)
- Danish: Charlottes tryllespind (Charlotte's magic stick)
- French: Le Toile de Charlotte (The Fabric of Charlotte)
- Greek: I Karlota kai i avli tis
- German: Wilbur und Charlotte (Wilbur and Charlotte)
- Hebrew: חוות הקסמים (Havat Magic)
- Icelandic: Vefur Karlottu (Web Charlotte)
- Italian: La Meravigliosa stupenda storia di Carlotta e del porcellino Wilbur (The wonderful stupendous story of Charlotte and the piglet Wilbur)
- Japanese: シャーロットのおくりもの (The warden of the Charlotte)
- Korean: 샬롯의 거미줄
- Lithuanian: Šarlotės voratinklis (Scarlet's Web)
- Norwegian: Charlottes tryllevev
- Polish: Pajęczyna Charlotty
- Brazilan Portuguese: A Menina E o Porquinho (The girl and the pig)
- Spanish: La telaraña de Charlotte (The web of Charlotte)
- Swedish: Fantastiska Wilbur (Fantastic Wilbur)
- Thai: แมงมุมเพื่อนรัก (Our Dear Spider)
- Ukrainian: Павутиння Шарлотти (Web Charlotte)
- Vietnamese: Mạng nhện của Charlotte (Spiderweb of Charlotte)
- Notes: In Germany, the 1973 film is called Zuckermann's Farm - Wilbur im Glück (Zuckerman's Farm - Wilbur in luck . The 2006 movie is called Schweinchen Wilbur und seine Freunde (Baby Pig Wilbur and Friends. Also, in Sweden, the 2006 film is called Min vän Charlotte (My Friend Charlotte). The films of Charlotte's Web in French are called Le Petit monde de Charlotte (The Small World of Charlotte), even though the book is called Le Toile de Charlotte (The Fabric of Charlotte).
References
- ^ http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0203050.html
- ^ Nordstrom, Ursula (1974-05-12). "Stuart, Wilbur, Charlotte: A Tale of Tales". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-22.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Weales, Gerald (1970-05-24). "The Designs of E. B. White". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-22.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Elledge, Scott (1984). E. B. White: A Biography. W. W. Norton and Company. ISBN 0-393-01771-0.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ a b Neumeyer, Peter F. (1991). "Charlotte, Arachnida: The Scientific Sources". The Lion and the Unicorn. 19 (2): 223–221. ISSN 0147-2593.
{{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters:|quotes=,|month=, and|coauthors=(help) - ^ a b Elledge (1984), p. 295.
- ^ White, E.B. (1976). Letters of E.B. White. Harper and Row. pp. 353–354. ISBN 0-06-014601-x.
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: invalid character (help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ White (1976), p. 351.
- ^ New York Times, October 19, 1952
- ^ Nikolajeva, Maria (2002). The Rhetoric of Character in Children's Literature. Scarecrow Press. pp. 55–56. ISBN 0-8108-4886-4.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Lerer, Seth (2008). Children's Literature. University of Chicago press. pp. 249–251. ISBN 0-226-47300-7.
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See also
External links
