Charlotte's Web

All three of the story’s main characters, including Wilbur, Charlotte, and Fern, experience a coming of age between the springtime and the fall. Fern is eight years old when she adopts Wilbur as a piglet, and although she is still eight when summer ends, her priorities change immensely. Fern demonstrates maturity beyond her years when she cares for Wilbur and commits to him fully. By the time the County Fair happens in the fall, Fern is beginning to grow up. Her mother, once worried about Fern’s supposedly strange priorities, is relieved that her daughter is now more interested in boys than she is in Wilbur. Although Fern will always have a special place for Wilbur, she moves on from her preoccupation with him and the farm.

Wilbur begins his life as a tiny runt piglet being raised by Fern. Soon, he grows too big for her and is moved to the Zuckerman farm where he can be fed properly and live a pig’s life. Wilbur is forced to mature rapidly when he is separated from Fern for the first time, as he is now on his own. This proves challenging for him at first, since he is “a very young pig—not much more than a baby, really” (22).