Representation of animalistic characters in the puppet animated cartoon “James and the giant peach” by T. Burton

Animalistic characters play a very important role in the process of meaning formation both in film and animated cartoon discourses. They reflect cultural, social, political, geographical and other realities of public life, thus, contributing to perception and easy uptake of the content by a viewer/reader. The work is dedicated to the study of means of representation of animalistic characters based on the puppet animated cartoon “James and the Giant Peach” by Tim Burton. It is concluded that there are four different means of representation: an animal as an animal, an animal as a person, a person as an animal, and an animal as a natural phenomenon or magical manifestation. The author characterizes the peculiarities of each of the means, and identifies the symbolic importance of animals/insects which are present in the animated cartoon. It is marked that the representation occurs due to the introduction of visual and audio images and the usage of the linguistic sign (animalistic metaphor).