Literature and the art of humanising animals, objects and other things

The humanizing of animals, objects, and other things has been a literary device adopted by writers from ancient times.

- RAJESH TALWAR

As far as animals are concerned, humanizing them is especially popular in children's literature, be it talking dogs, cats, or even a wolf, as was the case in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

One of the most inspiring tales in this regard was written more than a hundred years ago, in 1883, by Italian writer Carlo Collodi, who hailed from Florence, Tuscany.

His work was called 'The Adventures of Pinocchio,' and it has spawned several films, such as Disney's 'Pinocchio,' released in 2022 and 'Pinocchio: A True Story' by Lions Gate.

There is even a Korean drama on the book.

The story was somehow rendered more poignant because Pinocchio is actually a puppet crafted from wood with magical properties who longs to be a real boy.

Had the story been that of a real boy given to telling lies, it would have been nowhere as engaging or memorable.

Some stories, like Pinocchio, can be adapted to film more easily than others.

On the other hand, there are films that humanize objects which would not work as books.

For instance, the film 'Cars,' released in 2006, is an animation sports drama with talking cars.

Set in a world that is populated with anthropomorphic cars, the film was a box office success but would not have worked as a novel.

Leaving aside children's fiction, humanizing animals has also been a literary device resorted to in the writing of adult fiction.

Most famously, the pig was humanized in George Orwell's classic 'Animal Farm,' a book that can be enjoyed at multiple levels, as simply a story but also as a satire on totalitarian regimes.

The last line of that novella stayed with the reader long after he had closed the pages of the book: 'The creatures outside looked from pig to man and from man to pig and from pig to man again, but already it was impossible to tell which was which.'