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Pedro Castillo Munoz

Professor Lynda Haas
Writing 37
January 30th, 2015
Animals Through Anthropomorphic Lenses
In modern literature authors commonly write stories that feature animals with human
characteristics as protagonists. This literary device, known as anthropomorphism, plays a
crucial role in determining how the moral of the story is transmitted. In the book Animal
Farm by George Orwell, for example, the main characters are anthropomorphized pigs that
act very humanly and in the end adapt a human lifestyle. Though Orwells purpose is much
deeper than simply entertaining the audience with animals that act like humans, the
personified animals provoke a great shift of attention on the reader. Other scholars argue that
anthropomorphism is not the only method used to share a message through literary works. In
his book Grant Morrison Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics, Marc Singer
elaborates the exclusion of anthropomorphized animals on the comic We3 by Grant Morrison,
pointing out specifically that in Morrisons work animals are treated as animals rather than as
superheroes. Morrison confirms this claim during the interview with Newsarama, in which
he discusses the ideas behind We3. Additionally, the magazine Antennae published an
archived interview in which Morrison explains the attributes given to the animals and the
feelings he hoped to stimulate on the audience. Despite the popularity of anthropomorphized
animals, top academics, such as Marc Singer and Grant Morrison, agree that there are
exceptions to this modern tendency of depicting animals as superheroes; instead, they argue,
realistic animals convey a stronger pathos and are more suitable for their purposes.

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While George Orwell makes use of animal personification in his book Animal Farm,
Marc Singer, professional American actor, argues that by using anthropomorphized animals
the piece of work is likely to fall under a genre called funny animal. In his book Grant
Morrison Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics, Singer claims that this genre is
defined not by its humor but by the presence of anthropomorphized animals who walk,
speak, and act like human beings. At the same time, in his interview with Newsarama, Grant
Morrison clearly differentiates We3 from its obvious movie and cartoon predecessors.
Morrison states that the events played out in We3 are very different and far more shockingly
violent than the adventures of Thomas OMalley and the Duchess in The Aristocrats
(Disney with Fangs). Nevertheless, Singer notes that the animals in We3 have been taught
to speak English, a human quality; however, he also claims that We3 still think and act like
animals (Singer 209). In addition, Morrison comments that The notion of teaching animals
to talk is inspired by the results of research from various animal communication experiments
done over the last thirty years (Disney with Fangs). Consequently, the projection of the
animals speaking seems to be very realistic in We3. Despite the success of the novel Animal
Farm, Morrison and Singer agree that the absence of anthropomorphized animals in We3 set
it apart from the most common stories that feature animals.
In the interview held by the magazine Antennae, Morrison explains that his purpose
in portraying the animals with their natural instincts is to illustrate a possible consequence of
animal experimentation. He specifically says that a big part of the story is what happens
when a product of scientific hubris goes wrong and turns against its creators. For this reason,
Morrison didnt want to sentimentalize the world of the animals. Rather than
sentimentalizing the environment, Morrison tried to be as subjective as possible, even with
the smallest details. For example, Morrison commented that the tech is based on current
military ordnance - the animals use, mines, poison gas, rapid fire bullets, ground to air

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missiles and flechettes.On the same note, Singer agrees that the end result is a formalist
experiment that deploys its graphic and narrative details for carefully considered effect
(Singer 210). As a result, Grant Morrisons purpose behind the realistic animals turned out to
be of great help in transmitting the ideal of animal rights being disregarded by humans that
perform experiments on animals.
In conclusion, Grant Morrison ignored the tendency to anthropomorphize animals in his
comic in order to clearly get a moral across, rather than just entertain or shift the audiences
attention with the animals. Although other writers have created stories that feature
personified animals that have became very famous, such as Animal Farm by George Orwell,
according to professional critics this pattern is not always followed. In fact, they argue that
the use of anthropomorphism could be very misleading and responsible for many
misconceptions among different audiences. This concept also applies to other types of literary
works such as movie, cartoons, and children stories. To some people, for instance, Mickey
Mouse might seem like a real character who has a body and a mind. Although this
misconceptions are mostly common among children, it is always important to know the
appropriate way to reach different audiences and know what medium is the most correct.

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Work Cited
Antennae. Mechanical Animals. Antennae, Issue 9. Spring 2009.
Brady, Matt. Disney With Fangs." Newsarama. September 29, 2007. Monday, January 19,
2015.
Morrison, Grant. We3. DC Comics, 2004.
Singer, Marc. Grant Morrison: Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics. University
Press of Mississippi, 2012.