Charlotte's Web: Archetype

The Mentor- Charlotte is not only the mentor but the hero as well. She is a mentor to many animals at the barn but none more than Wilbur. She helped Wilbur understand that life isn't easy and safe like Fern's arms. She helped him realize life has it's risks and problems that he can't always change.

A definition for a mentor is someone who teaches someone else many things and helps the hero along the way. Throughout the book Wilbur was asking what many words meant, and learned a lot from those very tiny questions, and even when charlotte was just talking to wilbur she seemed to be teaching him stuff. And without Charlotte Wilbur wouldn't have had any advice to help him.

All though we could say that Wilbur was the hero and charlotte was the mentor. We could also say that Charlotte was the Hero too. Hero's tend to "save the day" in many books, and that's exactly what Charlotte did. She saved Wilbur from being turned into bacon from Mr. Zuckerman.

I can't see how People Think Wilbur is the hero except for when he saved Charlotte's egg sac. Other than that he didn't do anything to save anyone or go on a perilous journey or anything. I just think that Charlotte should be called the hero not Wilbur.

charlotte's web: connected annotation

Throughout the book E.B white gave many animals human faces. I think it's because he's trying to show us that the animals in this book act just like humans and they aren't just animals we kill and that we should respect them as much as we respect each other. Just like the the iroquois indians did. They would not waste any part of any animal, they only killed if they needed food. They would then use the bones to make tools and weapons therefore not wasting any part of the animal.

I know that E.B White loved animals and lived on a farm (as I heard from the annotated version of Charlottes web) and he would not like for animals to be killed just because their small, or some cruel people do it just for fun. He would want to save as many animals as he could and I believe that he gave these animals faces like us because he wanted to show the world that they or we are demented versions of the other kind. 

These pictures actually correspond to the theme of the book, and they help it get across to the readers. We should try to save animals as much as we try to save humans. When E.B white had the picture of Charlotte on her web up close is when I first realized that they had those special faces, and then I looked back and I saw that many of the other animals a few pages back had these faces too. At first I was very confuse at why, but then I heard that E.B White loved animals, and boom it hit me. E.B White must be using these pictures to show us something, something important...

When Avery was going to knock down Charlotte and put her in a box, he tripped and crushed the rotten egg Templeton had. I believe E.B put that part in there as a form of Karma. He was going to take Charlotte for no important reason and he got gassed by the stench of the rotten egg.

I believe that if we all respected animals more that we would live a better life.

Charlotte's Web: Expanded annotation

In Charlotte's Web Wilbur was having a very tough time getting used to the new farm life, he always needed someone to play with him. When everyone said no he got really upset and started to cry. I was really confused at why, when i read that part but then I looked back and realized the he was playing with fern everyday for the first month of his life. Because of that I believe that Wilbur became so dependent on having someone to play with every day.

When someone or something gets too dependent on anything, it really hurts when it gets taken away. For 

example, wilbur being dependent on Fern, or even the United States being dependent on Oil in the Middle East. I was just like Wilbur when i was 5. I used to hang out with my friend every Friday to Sunday. Every day he left I would get really upset and lonely knowing that i wouldn't be able to hang out with anyone for another 5 days.

If something gets losses something they love and want, they may start to get really upset and loss can lead to "dark side" meaning that they may start to take out their anger on others or worst case scenario if they lose something extremely important to them that can't be replaced they may kill themselves.

But in Wilbur's case when he lost Fern he wasn't going to commit suicide but he was going to die if it wasn't for Charlotte. Sometimes when someone loses something, another thing comes in a replaces it, that other thing may not be the same but it does help a lot. Just like Wilbur finding charlotte, but other times it doesn't work out like that.

Wilbur and Fern were lucky that no one got seriously hurt when being separated, but if they didn't meet Charlotte, Fern would be devastated when she realized Wilbur was dead. I do wonder what fern would do to her father and the Zuckermans. If she went crazy before she really got to take care of Wilbur, what would she do after she loved him more than anything else they actually succeeded in making Bacon out of Wilbur.