E.B. White's Faith in Nature: The Critique of Christianity in 'Charlotte's Web' Madeline Burleson College

In Charlotte’s Web, E. B. White juxtaposes a conventional children’s story surrounding the anthropomorphism of farm animals with relatively difficult concepts such as death in order to call readers to question their own faith and morality. This is an intriguing structure, for it goes against the traditional tendency to use children’s books to impose values, historically Christian values, on children. It is from this structure that White is able to comment on concepts of mortality, salvation, after life, and the existence of God, all of which are themes one may find striking or alarming in a children’s book. E. B. White effectively utilizes themes of faith, mortality, and nature to argue against a more traditional Christian understanding of morality, while simultaneously emphasizing a naturalistic vision of morality in which the laws and forces of nature are the basis of morality.

It is first necessary to understand the way in which White trivializes religion in order to understand the way in which he wants to move beyond traditional morality to a more naturalistic understanding of values in the world. White most profoundly trivializes faith in God, through Charlotte’s web. He begins this process by repeatedly utilizing the word...