What Is Anthropomorphism?
- Melchior Antoine
- Dec 16, 2024
- 4 min read
Anthropomorphism is a literary device that attributes human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities, such as animals, objects, or abstract concepts. It is derived from the Greek words anthropos (human) and morphe (form).
Anthropomorphism has been a part of storytelling and art for centuries, and it has played an important role in how humans relate to the world around them. This literary device allows writers to bring non-human elements to life, and it can bring elements of fancy, humor, and imagination to storytelling.
Why Do Writers Use Anthropomorphism?
Writers employ anthropomorphism for a variety of reasons. First, it makes abstract ideas or inanimate objects more relatable and understandable by giving them human-like traits. Another reason is that it creates a sense of wonder and imagination.
Anthropomorphism is frequently used in children's literature. It can serve as a powerful storytelling tool to impress children. By giving human traits to animals or objects, authors can teach lessons relating to empathy, kindness, and courage in a way that young readers can more easily appreciate. However, anthropomorphism should not be simply dismissed as a device to impress children. The most talented writers can use simple storytelling with anthropomorphism to make profound philosophical points.
Examples of Anthropomorphism
1. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843):
In Dickens’s classic novella, A Christmas Carol, anthropomorphism is used to give human qualities to abstract concepts like greed and generosity. The character of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is a prime example. Dickens describes this spectral figure as a foreboding entity that silently reveals Scrooge’s grim future.
The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved, it seemed to scatter gloom, and mystery.
It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible, save one outstretched hand. But for this, it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.
He felt that it was tall and stately, when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.
"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?" said Scrooge.
The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.
"You are about to shew me, shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us," Scrooge pursued. "Is that so, Spirit?"
The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received.
By personifying time and fate, Dickens is able to show and not tell the moral consequences of Scrooge’s actions, as well as his potential for redemption.
2. Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865):
Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland makes extensive use of anthropomorphic characters. In fact, they make up the majority of the characters in the book. Here is Alice being introduced to one of the central characters in the novel, the White Rabbit:
So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. . . .There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, `Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
The anthropomorphism of the rabbit is working on several levels here. It reflects the imagination and fancy of the young girl who is imagining or experiencing it. It also has symbolic meaning. Rabbits, especially one with a watch, may represent the frantic and hurried nature of modern life. Lastly, the nervousness of the rabbit, as expressed in his speech, makes his character memorable and even believable.
3. Arnold, "To Marguerite: Continued" (1852):
In his poem "To Marguerite: Continued," Matthew Arnold uses anthropomorphism to bring the British Isles to life. He does so to symbolize the islands as representatives of human suffering and isolation, who long to be part of the European continent once more. The impossibility of these islands ever becoming one with the continent symbolizes the inability of humans to escape isolation.
Yes! in the sea of life enisled,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.
The islands feel the enclasping flow,
And then their endless bounds they know.
But when the moon their hollows lights,
And they are swept by balms of spring,
And in their glens, on starry nights,
The nightingales divinely sing;
And lovely notes, from shore to shore,
Across the sounds and channels pour—
Oh! then a longing like despair
Is to their farthest caverns sent;
For surely once, they feel, we were
Parts of a single continent!
Now round us spreads the watery plain—
Oh might our marges meet again!
Who order'd, that their longing's fire
Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd?
Who renders vain their deep desire?—
A God, a God their severance ruled!
And bade betwixt their shores to be
The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.
Arnold describes the islands as suffering from "a longing like despair" that is felt in their "farthest caverns." In short, the islands' caverns are being turned into lonely and empty human hearts.
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2024, December 16). What Is Anthropomorphism? EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/what-is-anthropomorphism |
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