So I was wondering if you knew if any of the human characters in the book grow and develop. I son't really feel like they do, but it is possible I missed a very important part. Maybe the dad did because he chose not to slaughter the big, but I don't think that's really a growth and development scenario.
Fern is completely loving and, at the beginning of the novel, totally innocent. She is a moralist who saves Wilbur's life by arguing with her father that a small piglet has just as much right to live a large piglet. She subsequently looks after him as a mother would and when he is sent to live with her uncle, she still visits him. She has a big heart and a motherly nature.
Fern is enchanted by life at the Zuckerman's barn and enjoys listening to Charlotte's stories and spending time with the animals there.
As we progress through the novel, Fern grows up and starts to move away from the barn and from the exciting world of imaginative possibilities. She becomes far more interested in Henry Fussy than Wilbur and this is treated with obvious distain by the narrator. Dr Dorian says 'I would say, offhand, that spiders and pigs were fully as interesting as Henry Fussy. Yet I predict the day will come when even Henry will drop some chance remark that catches Fern's attention.'
http://www.gradesaver.com/charlottes-web/study-guide/character-list
