The Evolution Of Animals In Stories Over Time
- 1. Animals are magical. See folklore and fairy tales. ...
- 2. Animals are amusing. Animals are no longer objects but characters in their own right. ...
- 3. Guilt. Animals in stories are there to show us all our human shortcoming, and also how animals should properly be treated. ...
Why are children’s stories about animals so popular?
Stories about animals have always been a staple of children’s literature. At first, such books were not particularly concerned with entertainment, but had the practical aim of helping children to learn to read, count and understand the world around them. Children’s assumed familiarity with animals could help with this.
What do children need to know about animals?
Children need to read stories which touch their hearts and minds. They need to be able to say, “Yes, that’s me,” when they pick up a book. When the stories are about animals the message isn’t cluttered by whether the character is a boy or a girl or what nationality or culture it might come from.
Why do authors use animals in their books?
The use of animals is a sure-fired way to cut through any aspects that might stop the reader immediately identifying with the characters and their stories. They won’t look at a book and see a child from another culture or the opposite gender, and think that’s not me, I can’t identify with what they are going through.
Why do children’s books have animal motifs?
These stories rely on animal motifs, such as the idea that a lion is brave, to transmit messages to their readers and listeners. From the popularity of Aesop eventually came many other tales of animals throughout the eighteenth century. As children’s books became easier and less costly to print, the number of animal stories grew.
What is the most popularized example of animal stories?
What is the theme of the Jungle Book?
Why did Aesop use animals?
Why do we anthropomorphize animals?
Why are animals good characters?
What are some of the themes that animals illustrate?
Why do religious texts and artwork tell us that when approaching human subjects, gods or other nonhuman deities and figures?
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Why are animals important in stories?
Animals are extremely important to children's books. They give children a sense of stability and changelessness in a changing, confusing world, both because animals change far less rapidly in time than we do and because they are members of a natural order full of beauty and spirituality.
Why do childrens stories use animals?
Stories about animals have always been a staple of children's literature. At first, such books were not particularly concerned with entertainment, but had the practical aim of helping children to learn to read, count and understand the world around them. Children's assumed familiarity with animals could help with this.
What is the purpose of animal imagery?
In literature animal imagery is used to define the characteristics of a human using animal instincts and behaviors. It's another way of symbolizing animals in a way that humans can relate to.
What can animals in stories teach us?
10 LIFE LESSONS CHILDREN CAN LEARN FROM ANIMALSBRAVERY. Lion: The lion is an epitome of bravery. ... FORGIVENESS. Elephant: The elephant is an animal that can be characterized as meek. ... DETERMINATION. ... Living in the moment. ... Team work. ... Patience. ... Loyal and faithful. ... Follow your own path.More items...•
Why are there so many animals in children's books?
0:001:36Why are there so many animals in children's literature? - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipHi guys kelly here as part of a q a series today i will be answering the question why are there soMoreHi guys kelly here as part of a q a series today i will be answering the question why are there so many animals in children's literature. Children have delighted in stories about animals for centuries
How are animals represented in children's literature?
Animals in children's literature may be wholly animalistic, they may act as symbols, they may traipse around in human clothes and perform human actions, or they may also represent racial and other differences. Similarly, child characters may be so feral they act as animals or desire to be one.
Why do authors use animals in children literature? - Quora
Answer (1 of 6): It does double duty for education as well. You are teaching animal names and what animals look like and what animals can do while at the same time delivering a story the way you were going to. For a little kid, having human names increases the complexity of the vocabulary of the ...
What is the role of animals in literature for kids in the ... - eNotes
The genre of children's literature only surfaced in the eighteenth century; prior to this period, there were fables, fairytales, ballads, etc. that children read or had parents read for them, but ...
Animals and Literature: G & H: Animals in children's literature
In section we had briefly discussed the prevalence of animals as characters in children's books and what purpose they serve. Obviously children understand that animals cannot speak, yet having animals talk in a story is quite popular.
What is the big bad wolf in Little Red Riding Hood?
Even though we have changed and sanitized these fairytales from their original more gruesome beginnings, there is no denying the wolf is still meant to represent a meaner, and seedier side of human nature .
What are the three little pigs and the ugly ducklings?
The Ugly Duckling and the Three Little Pigs represent other values which are commonly found in children. Values such as naivety, inexperience, and an over trusting nature, are often portrayed by animals alluding to the vulnerability of children. The child is meant to identify with these, and learn from a lesson from the character.
Why do children use animals?
The use of animals is a sure-fired way to cut through any aspects that might stop the reader immediately identifying with the characters and their stories. They won’t look at a book and see a child from another culture or the opposite gender, and think that’s not me, I can’t identify with what they are going through.
What do authors want to create?
Authors want to create characters which are immediately identifiable with any child who reads the story. The author can start with a clean slate, as it were, on which he or she can mold and shape the exact scenario they want. They don’t have to be concerned about explaining race or cultural differences unless they are fundamental to the sub-text of the story.
How does removing visual barriers help a young reader?
By removing any noticeable visual barriers the young reader immediately identifies with the character’s personality and the issues they are facing.
Why are children's books good?
Most children’s books were created to help children learn more about themselves. Some focus on values such as sharing, generosity, kindness and friendship.
Who is Susan Day?
Susan Day is a passionate author, educator and, a grandmother. She wants to empower all grandparents to build meaningful relationships with their grandchildren. Discover here the Top 10 Things Happy Grandparents Never Regret Doing.
What does the status of domesticated animals and pets reflect?
While the status of domesticated animals and pets could perhaps reflect a child’s sense of powerlessness in a world dominated by adults, as well as a delight and wonder about the world. By the turn of the twentieth century, animals had firmly established themselves as central to the pantheon of tales for children.
What is the lesson in Anna Sewell's Black Beauty?
The most commercially successful of these, Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty (1877), which has sold millions of copies, was not composed necessarily as a children’s story, but as a lesson about the proper treatment of horses. Written in plain language with stablemen in mind as an audience, Sewell ‘sought to induce kindness, sympathy, ...
What is Sarah Trimmer's book about?
In Sarah Trimmer’s enormously successful book she interwove the stories of a family of robins and a human family. While these books were all aimed at children, and we can assume that children’s reading was tightly controlled in the nineteenth century, works initially aimed at adults also became seen as children’s stories.
What did publishers do in the nineteenth century?
Publishers cannily grasped the opportunity to sell more books and set about finding new products to sell. Often, these were reworkings of existing stories and used older woodblocks, such as images of horses, dogs or sheep, but by the early nineteenth-century, more sophisticated texts were offered for sale.
What is the purpose of Dr. Matthew Shaw's book Animals?
At first, such books were not particularly concerned with entertainment, but had the practical aim of helping children to learn to read, count and understand the world around them.
Why did children's books grow?
By the eighteenth century the market for children’s books was clearly growing, fuelled by growing literacy, a concern for the moral or religious education of the young, cheaper paper and more economical printing methods. Publishers cannily grasped the opportunity to sell more books and set about finding new products to sell.
Where were the first public zoos?
An increasing number of popular illustrated natural histories, public displays of exotic animals and the earliest public zoos in Paris (1793) and London (The Tower of London from the 1720s, and the Zoological Society of London from 1826) expanded the menagerie of creatures available for writers and illustrators.
How old were the Boston toddlers when Ganea was a kid?
To see whether her suspicions were correct, Ganea recruited 3- to 5-year- old Boston toddlers, and gave them a series of tasks. In one experiment, the kids were shown books that had realistic images of animals they weren't familiar with - cavies, oxpeckers, and handfish - but the text that accompanied the drawings were very different. Half of the children saw a version that included factual language, and half was anthromorphic. Compare the anthropomorphic story, above, to its factual counterpart, below:
Why does Mother Cavy lick her babies?
Mother cavy also licks the babies’ fur to keep them clean. Mother cavy and her babies spend the rest of the day lying in the sun. At night, they sleep in a small cave. After they go to sleep, mother cavy’s big ears help her hear noises around her.
What did half of the children see in the story of the cavy?
Half of the children saw a version that included factual language , and half was anthromorphic. Compare the anthropomorphic story, above, to its factual counterpart, below: When the mother cavy wakes up, she usually eats lots of grass and other plants. Then the mother cavy feeds her baby cavies.
Why does language matter more than illustration?
Together, the findings show that language matters more than illustration when it comes to learning about animals' biology and psychology. Even when the stories were accompanied by realistic images, if the language was anthropomorphic, the kids transferred that false knowledge to real animals.
How do children differentiate reality from fantasy?
And while most children can distinguish reality from fantasy when it comes to visual representations of animals, that distortion can also be reflected in the content of the story itself.
Do animals have human-like emotions?
Also, interestingly, the kids were somewhat less likely to imbue real animals with human-like physical abilities ("Do cavies talk?"), but were totally willing to agree that animals had human-like complex emotions ("Can handfish feel proud?") or social preferences ("Do oxpeckers have friends?"). Setting aside the shades of grey as to whether non-human animals have analogues for things like friends, the findings suggest that for young kids, "exposure to anthropomorphized language may encourage them to attribute more human-like characteristics to other animals than exposure to factual language." That is, while they have a basic understanding about the physical differences between humans and animals, they are less clear about the psychological differences.
Does anthropomorphic imagery hurt learning?
In other words, combining anthropomorphic imagery with factual language didn't hurt learning, but combining unrealistic pictures with anthropomorphic language did.
What is the story of Aesop?
If you understanding that these stories were created in a situation where free speech was dangerous for the lowly, you will grasp the special flavour of the fables. Take the story of the “Lion and the Mouse” where a lion frees a mouse he has captured because of the little creature’s laughable promise to perhaps someday help the larger one; later that promise is fulfilled when the mouse gnaws through ropes after the lion is captured in a net. Here we can imagine a slave trying to subtly suggest to his master that sometimes the lowly should be listened to and can assist their betters; but we should note that this point is being made in a completely inoffensive and oblique way, by means of animals.
Why do children identify with animals?
In some books, the animals don’t have the power of speech. Children identify with animals because young children cannot express themselves verbally either . On the other hand, it’s difficult to identify too closely with an animal character, which is just as well when we have small, cute birdies chased down by big, bad wolves. Animal characters can provide just the right balance of empathy and distance.
Why did animal stories rise?
Animal stories rose as religious stories declined in popularity.
How do animals evoke a tone?
I do think animals evoke a tone within a story automatically, simply by their presence. Each species has its own characterisations based on what we know about their behaviour. If a character is walking in the woods, for example, the presence of a deer evokes something different than say, a wolf, or bald eagle, or something totally unexpected like . . . an elephant. At a reading of Jasper Fforde’s he once said that crabs are funnier than lobsters, and that he wasn’t sure why, but he felt strongly that they were. We all have generalized associations with animals, and writers use those associations to drive an emotional reaction in their scenes. In the novel The Sisters Brothers, both protagonists have different relationships with their horses, treat and speak to them differently, and it reflects a great deal about who these characters are, what they value, how much empathy they have, and how relatable they are. In myriad ways, the presence of animals in stories enhances what we know about a character, foreshadows an event to come, or gives the scene mood and texture.
What are some prepackaged animal traits?
Certain animals come with prepackaged character traits: wolves are evil, foxes are cunning, bears like honey. These animals are character archetypes. Cats and dogs don’t get on, pigs are messy and baby chickens are cute and vulnerable. When an author wants to use (or subvert) one of these tropes, it’s efficient to make use of an animal archetype. Also, one specific character trait can be emphasised in this way, and readers expect flat rather than rounded characterisation.
Why do animals appear in stories?
3. Guilt. Animals in stories are there to show us all our human shortcoming, and also how animals should properly be treated . (Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, Sarah Trimmer’s religious stories (1782-1819). Other writers such as George Orwell use them as pawns in satire (Animal Farm). Other writers allow animals to retaliate against humans who have treated them badly (Daphne Du Maurier’s The Birds, The Chronicles of Narnia ).
What are the animals that belong to the Emperor?
According to from the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge by Jorge Luis Borges, animals divide into: 1 those that belong to the Emperor 2 embalmed ones 3 those that are trained 4 suckling pigs 5 mermaids 6 fabulous ones 7 stray dogs 8 those included in the present classification 9 those that tremble as if they were mad 10 innumerable ones 11 those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush 12 others 13 those that have just broken a flower vase 14 those that from a long way off look like flies.
What are some fairy tales that have a talking fox?
Many fairy tales include apparent talking creatures that prove to be shapeshifted people, or even ghosts. The fairy tales How Ian Direach got the Blue Falcon and Tsarevitch Ivan, the Fire Bird and the Gray Wolf have the hero aided by a fox and a wolf respectively, but in the similar tale The Golden Bird, the talking fox is freed from a spell to become the heroine's brother, and in The Bird 'Grip', the fox leaves the hero after explaining that it was the dead man whose debts the hero had paid.
What are some examples of talking creatures?
The earliest example of talking creatures portraying humans, as opposed to talking creatures portraying creatures, was in Vishnu Sarma 's Panchatantra ( Fables of Bidpai ), which was set in a world of talking creatures who represent human morals and behavior. A good Western example of the genre is Henryson 's Fabillis.
What is the talking serpent?
A notable example from the Judaeo-Christian tradition is the talking serpent from the Book of Genesis, which tempts Eve to eat the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil . Many fairy tales include apparent talking creatures that prove to be shapeshifted people, or even ghosts.
What is the most common trait in fairy tales?
Whether shape-shifted or merely having the magical ability to speak, the talking creature is perhaps the most common trait of fairy tales. The motif is certainly present in many more tales than fairies. Numerous modern science fiction and fantasy stories intermix human and creature characters.
What is a talking creature?
Talking creatures which are still creatures. The creature retains its original form without much change, other than being able to speak. Sometimes it may only speak as a narration for the reader's convenience.
What animals talk in the Land of Oz?
In L. Frank Baum 's Land of Oz, creatures (such as the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger ) talk. The chicken Billina gains the ability to talk when she is swept away by a storm to land near Oz, as do other animals, and Toto, it is explained in a retcon, always had the ability since arriving in Oz, but never used it.
What is an example of anthropomorphism in anime?
A good Western example of the genre is Henryson 's Fabillis. The webcomic "Anima: Age of the Robots" ( Anima (webcomic)) uses anthropomorphism to portray an alternate world as modern as ours, but inhabited by creature-lookalikes. The intelligent robots they have made rebel and threaten the creatures.
What is the most popularized example of animal stories?
One of the most popularized examples from western culture is the story of Adam and Eve, in which Eve is deceived by Satan posing as a snake in the tree of the forbidden fruit. Despite not being aimed directly at child audiences, Aesop’s fables are usually pointed to as the first instance of animals appearing in stories for children.
What is the theme of the Jungle Book?
For example, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, also popularized by the Disney movie it inspired, revolves heavily around the idea of maintaining order. All of the animal characters abide by “The Law of the Jungle”, a poem that outlines a code of rules that everyone strictly adheres to. Even in a place as wild and seemingly untamed as the jungle, animals must abide by the law or be punished. It is well known that Kipling was a lover of rules and order, as he was involved in the Scout Movement, so it is easy to connect the dots and understand that Kipling wanted child readers of his book to be dutiful and obedient.
Why did Aesop use animals?
Aesop relied on the use of animals to convey moral takeaway lessons from his parables. These stories rely on animal motifs, such as the idea that a lion is brave, to transmit messages to their readers and listeners.
Why do we anthropomorphize animals?
Another reason to anthropomorphize is that it makes character development easier on the writer. Certain animal motifs already exist, like those found in Aesop’s fables, that create characters that children love. Some of these are rooted in biology, others are reinforced through repeated depiction. Here is a list of a few common animal motifs that you’ve definitely seen in children’s books or television: 1 Cute bunnies 2 Wise elephants 3 Lazy sloths 4 Laughing hyenas 5 Noble lions 6 Possums that hang by their tail 7 Criminal raccoons 8 Talkative parrots 9 Evil sharks 10 Mischievous monkeys
Why are animals good characters?
Although it may sound contradictory at first, animals make effective characters because they allow the reader to see themselves while also remaining distant enough from humans to permit children to consider messages in a more objective way.
What are some of the themes that animals illustrate?
Common themes and concepts that can be illustrated by animals include moral or etiquette lessons, rules and order, government function, or religion . The author’s use of animal societies helps readers apply these abstract topics in a way that is much easier to understand.
Why do religious texts and artwork tell us that when approaching human subjects, gods or other nonhuman deities and figures?
Religious texts and artwork also tell us that when approaching human subjects, gods or other nonhuman deities and figures could assume the forms of various animals in order to communicate certain ideas or messages to them.
