Elwyn Brooks White Style

Elwyn Brooks White, or E.B White is best known for his children’s books The Trumpet of the Swan, Stuart Little, and one of his best known books; Charlotte’s Web. E.B was not a children’s writer from the beginning, he wrote pieces such as poems and short stories for Harper’s Magazine. For that magazine, E.B “wrote three children’s books- Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web, and The Trumpet of the Swan- which became classics” (The New Yorker 375). White has a very different style that he writes with, “White developed his books for children in the manner of Kafka, The books are Kafka with an American twist, they are Kafka with happy endings” (Epstein 380). William Dean Howells had once said, “What American public wanted ‘was a tragedy with a happy ending’” (Epstein 380). “The combination of seriousness and whimsy, or of the minute and the momentuous, is effective, and at times profoundly true. Because human experience is a curious mixture of shifting tones and moods there is a basic honesty in White’s writing: he reveals himself as a man unafraid of surface contradictions or of simple and natural responses” (Sampson 530). White used experiences he had throughout his life and incorporated them into his children’s books. He also uses animals in his books, because “children love living things and have their own fascination with the animal world. Children, they are permitted to love things they do not understand” (Epstein 380).

One of E.B White’s most famous books is Charlotte’s Web. In the book, Charlotte’s Web, the Arable family owns a farm and the pig recently had piglets. When Mr. Arable goes out in the barn to kill the runt of all of the piglets, his daughter, Fern stops him and tells him it is not right to kill a pig just becaus...

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...fascination with the animal world. Children, they are permitted to love things they do not understand. But coming to these books as an adult, and loaded down with knowledge of their author’s life, with its longings and fears, one cannot avoid reading them as fables about E.B White’s own life” (Epstein 380). Reading about the tales and adventures of animals is different to a child compared to an adult. Children are fascinated with animals, but do not understand the hidden meanings, whereas the adults do. After knowing about White’s life it is easy to understand that these three books are pieces of his life that he is telling from a different point of view, the view of animals. White’s writing is an expression of himself (Sampson 530). “Hardly any literate American has not benefitted from his humor, his nonsense, his creativity, and his engaging wisdom” (Hasley 526).