You might have seen a piece of media where an animal character moves, talks, and presents themselves in a very human way. For example, a show involving a children’s playground with a dog with a shirt and guitar, or a movie where a mouse mom is teaching her kids life lessons. As it turns out, there’s a word for that! It is called anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism is when you give something that isn’t human human-like traits. This might sound similar to another English technique called personification, but whereas personification is a type of figurative language, anthropomorphism is literal. Anthropomorphism is used a lot in media and story telling.
But why use anthropomorphism in your own life and how would you use it? This guide will provide anthropomorphism examples and then give you a better understanding on how to use them.
Table of Contents
Where Are Anthropomorphism Examples Commonly Used?
Anthropomorphism Examples in Literature
A lot of old folk tales use anthropomorphized animals to help communicate a message in their story. Folk tales are typically targeted towards children, and anthropomorphism is used to make the story feel more magical and engaging to said children. It also helps pre-establish some things about a character depending on the animal. For example, a fox character is commonly characterized as sly while a lion character is usually proud and mighty.
You can also use anthropomorphism in adult-oriented stories to help you convey messages. In this scenario, characters’ characteristics will interact in some way with the deeper themes in the story. For example, in Animal Farm the farm animals rebel against the human farmers in a violent takeover, but the pigs end up in power and end up treating the animals worse than the humans had. This uses the common characterization of pigs as selfish to make a statement about revolutions leading to worse dictatorships if you aren’t careful. This comparison is sometimes seen as an extensive metaphor.
Anthropomorphism Examples in Film and TV
Movies and tv shows will sometimes include anthropomorphism in a similar way that literature does. Anthropomorphism in film and TV is often seen in either children’s media or in the fantasy genre, and most of the works end up being animated to make giving non-human elements human characteristics easier.
In fantasy, you might see things like the wind or ocean be given a certain character that either helps or hinders the heroes. You might also see different fantasy races that are based on different plants or animals found in the real world.
Anthropomorphism Examples in Religion and Mythology
A lot of gods in older mythologies are based on concepts and things that are found in everyday life. One major example of this would be Ancient Greek mythology, in which gods emobdy physical concepts like lighting, the ocean and the sun, along with more abstract concepts such as love, war, and death. Other cultures might anthropomorphize spirits instead of gods to represent things in their environment, such as a wind spirit or a tree spirit.
Anthropomorphism Examples in Marketing and Branding
Anthropomorphism can be seen in a lot of different brand mascots. A mascot is a character made to represent a brand and create associations in a viewer’s mind. Food mascots are often associated with restaurants or snacks and aim to create positive connotations with the food that is being sold. Mascots are also a quick way to get childrens’ attention, especially when you’re selling candy or other foods kids like. Depending on how the character is written, a mascot can also help relate to audiences.
Anthropomorphism Examples in Everyday Life
Anthropomorphism in everyday life is less direct than it is in fictional media. Most situations that might seem like anthropomorphism are actually just personification. That being said, sometimes you can see anthropomorphism in the way people speak to different non-human things. For example, you might hear a pet owner talk to their pet as if the animal could understand. This is a form of anthropomorphism, as the pet owner is projecting a human trait onto an animal.
30+ Anthropomorphism Examples
Animal Anthropomorphism Examples
- Mice who wear clothes and talk (e.g., cartoons)
- Dogs acting like human companions in stories
- Birds literally singing songs in a children’s movie
- A lizard character crying
- A lion standing on two legs instead of four
- Pigs establishing a social hierarchy
- Bees talking in English or another human language
- Wolves attacking people with spears and swords
- Cats eating with a knife and fork
- Hippopotamuses swimming in freestyle
Object Anthropomorphism Examples
- Cars or gadgets given names and personalities
- Toys with human emotions in storytelling
- Toasters moving around as if they had legs
- Clocks talking to humans
- Closets vomiting out clothes
- Carrots dancing to music
- Guns running around
- Books talking and moving around a room
- Computers or AI talking to a person using words
- Houses showing teeth and trying to eat people
Mythological Anthropomorphism Examples
- Gods eating, fighting, or marrying like humans
- Winds behaving with intent
- Volcano spirits getting angry and violent
- Death being represented as a skeleton man with a scythe
- Cosmic objects such as the sun that are given a personality and intent behind existence
- Abstract concepts such as love being given a representative form, either as a god or spirit
- Harmful effects such as pollution being given an evil personality that harms nature spirits
- Gods directly interacting with people
- Spirits moving around and interacting with people
- Good and evil being directly represented by cosmic beings
How to Practice Using Anthropomorphism Examples Correctly
Anthropomorphism might seem like a simple concept, but how can you get better at using it? One way to practice is with writing exercises; create a story involving something non-human and assign it human behaviours.
For example, you might talk about how two wind spirits fell in love or how a toaster overworked itself and then broke. Another exercise you can try is to write a short children’s story with animal characters. This can help improve your writing skills when it comes to writing a theme and your creativity. If you need some inspiration, try looking for cartoons or myths with anthropomorphized characters and see how they are handled in the story.
Situations Where You Would Use Anthropomorphism Examples
Anthropomorphism can serve as a powerful tool to tell stories and engage audiences. However, it is not a very widely-applicable form of language. Here’s a guide to help you learn appropriate and inappropriate uses of anthropomorphism.
Appropriate Uses of Anthropomorphism
- Storytelling and children’s literature: Anthropomorphized characters help engage a child audience and present themes in a way that is both subtle and interesting.
- Marketing and branding strategies: Mascots are often used to create positive connections with products being sold. They can also help charm and relate to watching audiences.
- Entertainment and creative writing: Using anthropomorphism can help strengthen the themes in your writing by making them more subtle. You can also create points of comparison with the subject and real world situations.
Inappropriate Uses of Anthropomorphism
- Academic and scientific writing: Since anthropomorphism involves you literally giving human traits to something that isn’t human, you might end up suggesting something impossible and unprofessional in your academic or scientific writing.
- Legal or professional communication: Legal communication relies heavily on precision, and anthropomorphism is a concept that only exists in fiction. Using it will cause confusion and harm your credibility.
- Situations requiring objectivity and precision: Similarly to legal and academic writing, when your goal is precision, anthropomorphism is not a good tool to implement, as its literal nature can cause confusion and misinterpretation.
Conclusion
To recap, anthropomorphism is a way of adding human traits to non-human subjects in a literal way. It is often used in stories as a way to connect with a theme or engage audiences, especially children. It is an important aspect of learning English, as it shows some of the strengths of the human imagination, and gives you different ways to tell a story.
If you want to practice using anthropomorphism in a group, try learning as part of a WhatsApp group.