Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White and E. White

In the past, while reading Charlotte’s Web to each of my 3 children, I more less thought of it as a text that centered around teaching emotions and feelings of empathy, life and death coping mechanisms as well as unimaginable friendships between two extremely dissimilar creatures.
What I find very interesting is the complexities of applying multiple theories to this particular text for it being a children’s/young reader’s genre. I will take a look at three literary theories, New Historicism, Deconstruction and Reception/Reader response and how we can apply them to the story.

I am really in shock of the different levels I keep seeing being brought forward after my studies. I would like to read it again in its entirety after this class and really formulate a more diverse understanding in applying more theories. I do know that now, when I read a text it will become easier for me to comprehend and explain deeper meaning and ambiguities, as my youngest is still interested in me reading to him and does ask many questions the texts raises, Mostly from the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series at this point, in regards to bodily functions, but I am prepared more so now than before in how to engage reader responses and other approaches that he and I can explore together with a better grasp on where an author is coming from and see stories in a whole new light.

White was born in Mount Vernon, New York, on July 11,1899 and died on October 1, 1985 at 86 years of age, in his rural farm town environment of North Brooklyn Maine; where it “is of central importance to the creation of Charlotte's Web, a book that is, among other things, a celebration of the seasons in a rural life.” (Cech 1983 web n. pag)

White’s career started 1927, he joined...

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...tical Perspectives. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford-St. Martins, 2010. 418-19. Print.

Neumeyer, Peter F. "E (lwyn) B (rooks) White." American Writers for Children, 1900-1960. Ed. John Cech. Detroit: Gale Research, 1983. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 22. Literature Resource Center. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.

Rice, Philip, and Patricia Waugh. “Hayden White, Jacques Derrida, Harold Bloom, Terry Eagleton.” Modern Literary Theory: A Reader. 4th ed. London: Arnold, 2001. Print.

Schama, Chloe. "Smithsonian.com." Smithsonian Magazine. Smithsonian, 3 June 2011. Web. 03 Dec. 2013

Siegle, Kristi. "Introduction to Modern Literary Theory." Introduction to Modern Literary Theory. Dr. Kristi Siegel, Jan. 2006. Web. 07 Dec. 2013. http://www.kristisiegel.com/theory.htm#poststruct White, E. B., Garth Williams, and Edith Goodkind Rosenwald. Charlotte's Web. New York: Harper, 1952. Print.