The first time most people fall for E.B. White – certainly the first time I did – they are 6 or 7 or 8. In 1952, “Charlotte’s Web” made him the New Yorker writer with the largest grade-school fan base.
I fell in love with “Charlotte’s Web” because, when White talked about grown-up mysteries like love and death, he was as honest as a punch to the jaw. Many years later, I fell in love with “Death of a Pig” because, covering the same subjects for adults, White was as straightforward as a pie to the face.
Here are the facts of the case: A gentleman farmer (and New Yorker staff writer) ventures out to his pig enclosure one September afternoon and discovers that the hog he has nurtured through spring and summer has lost its appetite, gone listless. An obstruction of the bowel is suspected. The farmer, his dachshund and a veterinarian preside over the pig’s decline, until it dies alone a few days later, sometime between supper and midnight. The pig receives a graveside autopsy and is buried under a wild apple tree. The farmer accepts his neighbor’s condolences (“the premature expiration of a pig is, I soon discovered, a departure which the community marks solemnly on its calendar, a sorrow in which it feels fully involved”) before taking up his pen and telling the story “in penitence and in grief, as a man who failed to raise his pig.”
B. He is resourceful and patient.
First, it signals the end of Bill and Mary's attempt at conversation, startling Mary into the present.
If the lights symbolize truth or revelation, then their sudden brightness represents the irrefutable passage of time and the impossibility of ever recovering or re-doing the past. That the lights run "the whole length of Fifth Avenue" further emphasizes the completeness of this truth; there is no way to escape the passage of time.
It's worth noting that the lights turn on right after Bill says, "You ought to see my kids" and grins. It's a surprisingly unguarded moment, and it's the only expression of genuine warmth in the story. It's possible that his and Mary's children might represent those lights, being the brilliant chains that link the past with an ever-hopeful future.
16 ounces would be equal to one pound
The main idea of the paragraph would be the penguins camouflage and feathers help them in their survival
3 supporting facts would be: it makes them hard to see in the ocean for predators, they blend with they sky, their feathers protects them while swimming and keeps them warm.
(this could be worded better but yeah, hope I could help!)
