'Babar in his Studio' By Laurent de Brunhoff

'Babar in his Studio' 1984 By Laurent de Brunhoff

Category: Anthropomorphism

Laurent de Brunhoff’s illustrations in the ‘Babar’ books demonstrate a “large, colourful format”… “with a simple, childlike clarity” (8) to make them suitable for the target audience, children. As with many children’s books, the elephants in the Babar books have been anthropomorphised in a way that we humans can easily relate to as they reflect our own “drives, desires, fantasies and obsessions.” (9) The Babar books often have the elephant’s taking part in activities that we humans, children in particular, can relate to. For instance, painting. Having a well-loved children’s character demonstrating how they paint encourages children to connect “to animals as if they were very similar to us” (10). This is especially effective if such an animal happened to be a child’s favourite as the child would be able to sympathise with the animal in storylines as they would have developed an emotional attachment. In the ‘Babar’ illustration (as seen in the image above), Brunhoff draws ‘Babar’ with “little or no facial expression.” (11) This allows the child to determine themselves, what emotion they would associate the character feeling not only allowing them to relate to the story but also learn key life skills at the same time. Although the Babar character has some correlation with humans, Brunhoff has not completely taken away its animalistic approach. For example, Babar does not use his hooves to paint, he uses his trunk as if it were a pair of hands. When using anthropomorphism, Brunhoff does not be little the “animals themselves whose ‘value’ as resources makes them increasingly vulnerable to human control” (12) he simply uses the appearance of a friendly animal to increase his illustrations appeal.

References:
(8) Salisbury. M (2012) Page 20
(9) Malamud. R (2012) Page 3
(10) Fisher. F (1991) Page 51
(11) Salisbury. M (2012) Page 20
(12) Malamud. R (2012) Page 2