Anthropomorphism

Growing up, you hear a lot of stories where the main character is in some form or another an animal, and yet they can still talk, think philosophically, and other traits that are typically only attributed to humans. At the time, I never really thought anything of it. I thought that the characters were cute, and I liked to imagine what my pets might have been thinking or doing when I wasn't watching, so it was kind of cool to be able to see those ideas be put up on the big screen. But looking back, seeing how many children's stories were told this way, and especially how popular they were, I find myself questioning why.

It's not that I don't think it's a good or effective way of telling a story. Clearly it has been very effective. And it's not something particular new either, as we can look back through history and see that often times the stories of animals were told, and how they moved about the land and found homes and new ways of living that allowed them to continue to thrive, and we have passed down those stories as a way of teaching lessons.

So that leads me to the question of why? Why did we start telling stories this way in the first place? What lead us to think that, rather than telling the story of a man, we would tell the story of a dog, or a bear, or a horse? Why tell the story of a pack of wolves migrating to a new home, when you could just as easily tell the story of a tribe of humans?

Perhaps it was told this way to give the stories more of a sense of timelessness. After all, while humans have grown and evolved, finding more advanced ways to affect their lives and the lives and world around them, animals have not quite done the same. They exist in a co-dependant world that operates on a cycle, giving their lives a greater meaning that they cannot fully comprehend, but that they know on some level that they have a role to play.

It's the circle of life, as one animated, animal-centric movie would tell you.

Of course, I find it hard to believe that that was ever an intentional decision. But perhaps it never was intentional. Perhaps there have always been stories of man and beast, but it was the stories of beast that were more able to last through the generations, because they were the ones that stayed relevant. They were the stories that could be observed and verified, while the stories of man drifted into legend over the centuries.