Character development, purpose and impact in Charlotte’s Web and Hana’s Suitcase: A True Story
E.B White and Karen Levine form creative authors in Charlotte’s Web and Hana’s Suitcase: A True Story. Their creativity emanates from how they create their characters in a manner that they remain memorable, round, flat, and dynamic. More so, the characters in each story play a vital role and purpose, hence, creates an essential impact on the formation of themes and theme development. Generally, characters in a story or a novel are assets that determine the flow of ideas, themes, and purposes to create a sensible lesson to the reader or audience. Wilbur, the protagonist in Charlotte’s Web and Fumiko in Hana’s Suitcase, are portrayed as characters who underwent various developmental stages, serves vital purposes in the story,, and significantly impacts theme development. This paper explores Wilbur and Fumiko’s development, purpose,, and impacts on the themes in both stories.
Even though E.B White named Charlotte’s Web after Charlotte, the pig Wilbur is the protagonist of the story. White illustrates the round and dynamic development of Wilbur depicted from his appearance through to his characteristics. Wilbur’s appearance is staged through different developmental stages. When he was born, E.B. White describes Wilbur as a white pig, through which the morning light would shine. “It was a white one. The morning light shone through its ears, turning them pink” (White 6). Wilbur grew up and developed into a famous pig, with a different but fascinating appearance. E.B White describes his appearance after he became famous on page 135, “Note the smoothness and whiteness of the coat, observe the spotless skin, the healthy pink glow of ears and snout” (White 135).
Not only did Wilbur’s appearance and fame changed as he developed but also his diet, nature as well as hobbies transformed significantly. E.B White illustrates how Wilbur’s typical day would be from morning to evening. In the morning, he would take skimmed milk, shredded wheat, and potatoes, among other feed. At lunchtime, E.B White states that Wilbur would consume warm water, middling, apple pairings, and meat while super would be graced with skimmed milk, pruned skin, and provender (White 22). He likely sleeping, digging and scratching the fence with his snout. Furthermore, Wilbur has developed so much since he had to face the fact that he is pig and was entitled to being slaughtered. This made him helpless, started screaming, racing and throwing himself to the ground, trying to protest the idea that he was to be slaughtered during winter (White 43). Crying and throwing himself to the ground depicts the innocence and immaturity in Wilbur. This is a childish behavior that befalls children whenever they are faced with difficult situations.
Wilbur also transformed into a friendly pig when he made Charlotte. He learned how to take care of her children and ensure that they are safe all the time. Since love and friendship forms the primary theme of E.B White’s story, Wilbur’s development serves the purpose of this theme and strongly impacts its development. For instance, Fern’s love towards Wilbur was crucial since it protected him from being killed in runt while Charlotte’s love protected him from being slaughtered during Christmas dinner. Wilbur is also innocent, good and never gives up that is why he easily made friends with other animals. He is also grateful since after Charlotte dies, he takes care of her children.
In Hana’s suitcase, Fumiko is portrayed as the protagonist. Karen Levine uses this story to explain how parents encounter conflicting impulses as they raise their children. She explains that parents do all they can to protect their children against the horrible circumstances of the world. Every parent wishes to let her or his children play freely without troubles, fear of shootings or terrorism. However, parents still teach their children to live with the reality that these things are prevalent in the really world and the only way to overcome them is to face them in the best way possible. Thus, the book by Karen Levine explores the themes of history, hatred and hope.
Karen Levine uses Fumiko Ishioka as a teacher in the Hana’s Suitcase story. She teaches the children about the darkest history. As a curator during the Holocaust, Fumiko was Tokyo resident who was interested in digging up about the happenings and the events of the Holocaust. She used all the means to make her students understand about the history of the horror events that happened during that time. Therefore, she humanized the topic by creating several artifacts. One of the artifacts was a suitcase which is believed to belong to Hana Brady, a victim of the 1.5 million Jewish individuals killed during the Holocaust. Fumiko was dedicated to her job; she made tangible efforts to uncover the story of Hana to her students. This is evident when she diligently uncovered the fact that George Brady, Hana’s brother was a survivor of the Holocaust and was in Canada (Levine).
The story starts with Fumiko, alongside her students, searching for detailed information regarding Hana Brady. With her dedication as an educator, Fumiko is committed to passing the Holocaust story to the world, why students should learn about the cultures and people across the world. Teaching about children and their encounter at Holocaust helps children to empathize with the victims of the Holocaust especially those almost of their age, hence, makes it easy for the children to relate to the story (Levine). Each encounter that the adults faced was similar to what the children faced; they faced terrorism, hide, and were shipped in cars that carried cattle, faced humiliation and killed at the end. This is essential in providing new approaches in teaching.
The book Hana’s suitcase by Karen Levine chronicles Fumiko’s efforts, persistence, commitments and dedication to search the information regarding Hana and the events of the Holocaust. More so, the book travels back in the 1930s history to reveal Hana’s life, family and her area of residence, Czechoslovakia. It also elaborates an in-depth analysis of the Jewish restrictions after Germany invasion. At this time, children were restricted against studying further; Han was restricted from joining the third grade because she was Jewish (Levine). Fumiko also tells the events and her struggles to find information about Hana in a simple way that is easily understood by people of all ages. Therefore, he character development and purpose was ideal in creating the themes of history and hope after the Holocaust.
In conclusion, E, B White’s Charlotte’s Web and Karen Levine’s Hana’s Suitcase: A true Story are interesting stories revolving around the main characters like the pig Wilbur and Fumiko Ishioka. The two characters are vital in developing most of the themes in the story as well as building ideas to create a lesson to the readers. Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web helps in developing and building the theme of love and friendship as depicted through his friendship with Charlotte and Fern. Similarly, Fumiko builds the theme of history and hope through her persistence, commitment and dedication to finding Hana’s information and the events of the Holocaust. Fumiko uses a children and a simple language in teaching her students to create empathy since the students can easily related the events surrounding the children during the Holocaust with their real life.
Works Cited
Levine, Karen. Hana’s Suitcase on Stage. Second Story Press, 2006.
White, Elwyn Brooks. Charlotte’s web/druk 6. Lemniscaat Publishers, 1999.