After arriving at Zuckerman’s farm, Wilbur meets a lot of the other animals that live there. However, there are no predators. No cats or dogs or any other hunting animal comes around. Then Charlotte shows-up and appears to be in control of the barnyard animals.
Charlotte decides she “likes [Wilbur]” and wants to help him. Maybe she decides to save him because she feels bad about being a killer. She “eats anything that gets caught in [her] web”, so perhaps she wants to do something helpful before she dies.
She decides to save the pig by “playing a trick on the farmer”. She sees Zuckerman as “gullible”, thus thinking of herself as more clever. Charlotte makes a web for “some pig” and gets Wilbur into the newspapers. He becomes famous practically overnight.
Charlotte is the one who announces the goslings have hatched. She acts as the spokesperson for the farm animals and, thus, appears to be the one in control.
(On a side note, this is the only time we see another predator in the barnyard. Does that cat live there or was it just passing through? My guess, especially because it never talks, is the cat is just passing by the farm.)
Charlotte controls what happens to the animals at Zuckerman’s farm. She saves Wilbur, almost gets Templeton killed, and manipulates the farmer to do what she wants. As the lone predator on the farm, she uses (at times) cut-throat techniques to achieve her goals. She “tries to lift up [her] own life a trifle” by saving Wilbur and succeeding at her “great work[s]”.
While I understand why many people may not like this film, it has a wider range of vocabulary words than most children’s films you will see. I think most adults can learn a lot from this movie.
As always with remakes, everyone has their own opinion about which version is better. Compare and contrast both to make a decision.
Finding interpretations of this film was difficult. However, much has been written on this children’s book. Many themes are presented in this story.
Thank you for reading!