E.B. White’s tender tale of the friendship between a spider and a pig is really a story about the potential beauty inherent in any life. Life is brief, yet it can be lovely if we are willing to risk true friendship. What is True Friendship? The friendship that is key to the story begins on a rainy day that spoils the pig Wilbur’s plans to stay busy, so that instead he is forced to sit and keenly feel his loneliness. He flounders in dejection, hunger, and a dose of medicine forced down his throat. Charlotte has watched Wilbur’s self-wallowing behavior on the worst day of his life but still announces: “I like you.” Thus begins a friendship that enriches both lives. While Wilbur had experienced the love of Fern as a baby, his friendship with Charlotte challenges his notion of love. Fern gave Wilbur an instantaneous love that compelled her to nurture him. It was easy to love Fern in return. Upon first meeting Charlotte, Wilbur thinks: “‘But what a gamble friendship is! Charlotte is fierce, brutal, scheming, and bloodthirsty—everything I don’t like. How can I learn to like her, even though she is pretty and, of course, clever?’” Wilbur has discovered the difficulty of friendship. What is true friendship? It is not based on physical beauty or “cleverness”—i.e., what another can do for you. Friendship can be true if it is by choice and compels us towards selfless actions for the sake of the other. Charlotte can hardly see Wilbur at all because she is near-sighted. Unlike Fern, who fell A Beautiful Life in Charlotte’s Web Emily Ferkaluk
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