“If I could talk to the animals, just imagine it/Chattin’ with a chimp in chimpanzee. . . .” — “If I Could Talk to the Animals”; words and music by Leslie Bricusse
When you were working from home, were you convinced that every time you tried to join yet another one of those endless Zoom meetings, your computer hated you?
And when you did finally go back to the workplace, did you arrive home only to find that your dog had trashed the place because he was upset with you for leaving him alone?
Is that what’s bothering you, bunkie? If so, you might be suffering from a slight case of anthropomorphism. Or maybe it’s just a touch of personification — sometimes it’s kind of hard to tell the difference. So this time let’s take a closer look at those terms and a couple others just for fun.
Personification is what you’re doing when you complain about the way that vengeful computer is treating you. That is, you’re giving human traits to something that’s abstract or nonhuman. Personification is figurative, because it describes something as if it were a person.
When people hear those doughnuts calling their names, or give in to the beckoning of their recliners (from where they may or may not hear opportunity knocking for a nap), they’re using personification.
If we extend personification even further, it becomes anthropomorphism. Derived from the Greek words “anthropo” (human) and “morph” (form), anthropomorphism attributes not only human characteristics to nonhumans but human behaviors as well.
Most cartoon characters who use tools, live in houses and go to work are good examples of anthropomorphism, as are the beings who populate George Orwell’s 1945 allegorical novella “Animal Farm.”
While the animals of “Animal Farm” are good examples of anthropomorphism, the story is also a good example of zoomorphism, or giving the attributes of animals to humans. This is because the tale’s animals represent actual people: Snowball represents the intellectual revolutionary Leon Trotsky; Napoleon stands in for Stalin. The story’s nine dogs represent the police, and Squealer spreads Napoleon’s propaganda.
If we could actually talk to the animals, we might try to do it by using onomatopoeia, or words that imitate natural sounds, to communicate with them. If “woof” doesn’t work, we could also try sounds including: arf, buzz, chirp, cluck, tweet, hiss, honk, or howl. (I included onomatopoeia here not only because it fits the animal theme, but because the word contains four consecutive, different vowels in a row and is a favorite word of Mrs. Hatch’s fifth-grade writing class.)
There’s also something called “pathetic fallacy,” which takes its name from the Greek word “pathos” (emotion), and occurs when a writer applies human emotion or conduct to things found in nature. The use of pathetic fallacy has its detractors, but even British critic John Ruskin, who coined the term in 1856 to attack the widespread sentimentality of the poets of the time, admitted that he wasn’t necessarily opposed to its use.
When commenting on a poem about men rowing “Across the rolling foam/The cruel, rolling foam,” he said that he quite liked the lines “not because they fallaciously describe foam (as cruel), but because they faithfully describe sorrow.”
Probably my favorite use of pathetic fallacy is Flannery O’Connor’s declaration, “I like to walk in the woods and see what Mother Nature is wearing.”
Jim Witherell of Lewiston is a writer and lover of words whose work includes “L.L. Bean: The Man and His Company” and “Ed Muskie: Made in Maine.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
