Anthropomorphism in literature in general and especially in “The Life of Pi” by Yann Martel often involves main characters being animals in one way or another. In “The Life of Pi” since his father is runs a zoo, Pi is always surrounded by animals and forms an intense relationship and knowledge of their behavior. He integrates this empirical side of zoology with his spiritual knowledge and thus is proven to be adept at dealing with animals. While he is able to view them with a detached scientific gaze, he is often given to the “childish” notion of anthropomorphizing them.

This theme is often revealed in “The Life of Pi” by Yann Martel. For instance, he admits to such behavior when he imagines them speaking “fluent English, the pheasants complaining in uppity British accents of their tea being cold and the baboons planning their bank robbery getaway in the flat, menacing tones of American gangsters, saying in one of the important quotes from “The Life of Pi” by Yann Martel, “I quite frequently dressed wild animals in the tame costumes of imagination” (Pi 43). In the world of children, this is a “normal” and expected tendency, however with adults, such actions would be thought of as inappropriate.

It is interesting to note that an adult writer who, looking for ideas, is told that Pi has a tale to tell tells the “frame story” of Life of Pi. This author has a background in zoology and religion and frequently expresses that the two are hard to separate. For his studies as zoology major, he focused on the sloth. After talking about a lot of details regarding the lives and behavior of the sloth, he says of the animals, “I felt I was in the presence of upside-down yogis deep in meditation or hermits deep in prayer, wise beings whose intense imaginative lives were beyond the reach of my scientific probing” (Pi 5). In many ways, the reader is given an example of an acceptable way for adults to enjoy the “childish” impulse to anthropomorphize. In this case, it is acceptable because he is combining fields of study to make his creative assessment of the sloth.

This highlights an important point about the tendency to impose human characteristics on animals. When adults, such as in this case, anthropomorphize, the adult reader doesn’t give this any thought because it is implicit that since he’s a grown-up, he knows better. When Pi is given to doing it, it is kept in mind that he is still a child, thus it is a completely different issue. Therefore, it would seem that there is some proof that everyone—including adults—has this tendency and the only reason adults deny it is so that they don’t seem foolish. This begs the question of what is wrong with adults putting human characteristics on animals? After all, animals can serve as a mirror—a reflection of out primal selves. “The emphathizing imagination can be enlisted to enhance the awareness of sentient, cognitive, ethical, and emotional affinities between people and animals” (Malamud 197) thus it seems like a perfectly “grown-up” thing to do.

The fact that the reader is prone to accepting the anthropomorphism in “Life of Pi”, without forethought, that an educated adult’s act of anthropomorphizing is perfectly fine is quite interesting. It is an almost accepted idea that this is the way he views animals, yet no thought is given to how this is very much the same thing a child would do. Humans of all ages simply accept that there is a tendency to put human characteristics on animals—the only difference in children’s literature is that they take it at face value while adults presumably do not. LeGuinn brings up a paradox about the way different age groups read books about human and animal relationships, stating, “Nobody has ever heard an animal truly speak in human language, and yet in every literature in the world they speak a human language. It is so universal a convention that we hardly notice it” (LeGuinn 2003). While this is certainly a valid point in terms of the scope of animal/human literature, the fact that we look past these elements in stories is symbolic of our adult knowledge of our own tendencies.

Even the most educated scholars—those members of the world of the “ultra-grown-up” almost unconsciously admit to the tendency to anthropomorphize. For instance, critics of Melville have most often seen the whale in Moby Dick as “allegorical—the whale as the embodiment of human society and relationship—economic, political, psychological, or philosophical” (Armstrong 29). While it is a funny thought, it would seem that these writers are thus taking the inherent childish impulse to anthropomorphize and putting an academic gloss on it—making it sound high and literary while in fact it is only a glorified act of children (albeit using more sophisticated language). In Life of Pi, the young boy makes these same sorts of parallels, seeing an orangutan, “the prized Borneo matriarch, zoo star and mother of two fine boys” as the symbol of motherhood is just the same as the Melville critics seeing the whale as the representation of politics. The only difference is in the level of world experience. Pi is young and only knows his immediate family, thus is likely to use family-related ideas to impose on animals. On the other hand, these critics are more experienced and are surrounded by “big ideas” thus are likely to put those characteristics onto animals. Although it is slightly comedic, it’s all the same thing—the same “child’s” game—the only difference is how the amount of life experience determines the final trait imposed on an animal.

This acceptance of the way humans view and interact with animals is seen in all levels of society outside of literature. For example, many films are, much like Life of Pi, directed at all age levels because even though many adults may not readily accept it—all ages levels are “guilty” of anthropomorphizing. Consider for example another whale film that is directed at all ages. “The salvation of individual crustaceans (as in the case of Keiko, the ‘star’ of Free Willy) is celebrated because their mammalian characteristics, along with their purported intelligence and benignity, invite in humans a sense of kinship—all the more distinctive because it co-exists with other features suggesting radical otherness: colossal proportions, morphological similarity to an utterly different order of creatures; and the occupation of the alien world of the oceans” (Bryld 72). The big ideas that human adults cope with on a daily basis are projected onto this whale: otherness, the importance of intelligence, peace—all of these are put onto the whale in the film. The point is that humans have the tendency to see themselves mirrored in other animals and although animal stories are associated with children, the fact remains that all age groups are prone to the same youthful act.

Other essays and articles on related literary topics can be found in the Literature Archives at Article Myriad •

Works Cited

Armstrong, Phillip. “Moby Dick and Compassion.” Society and Animals 12 (2004): 9-33.

Bryld, m. & Lykke, N. Cosmodolphins: Feminist Cultural Studies of Technology, Animals, and the Sacred. London: Zed, 2002.

LeGuinn, Ursula K. Lecture. May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture Series. May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture Series, Tempe Arizona. 2 Apr. 2004.

Malamud, R. Poetic Animals and Animal Souls. New York: Palgrave, 2003