We are animals. As children, our animalistic sides are fairly obvious. The instincts and needs and wildness of children really aren't so different from those of young chimps or wolves. But as humans grow up, we slowly become more civilised, we face pressure to conform to society, and eventually most of us feel completely separate from the animal kingdom.
Despite this feeling of separation, part of our connection to animals remains. We hear an animal whine and we think it's sad. We see an animal raise the corners of its mouth and we think it's smiling. There's a word for our projection of human qualities on to animals: anthropomorphism. We anthropomorphise real animals as we interact with them, and we also anthropomorphise animal characters in our stories.
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