This article focuses on the musical processes used by Ravel to create emotional identification between characters and listeners in L’enfant et les sortilèges. Methodology consists in merging reception and analysis, using the sensitivity of the audience at the first performance, to reach some reactions that could be ignored by the modern listener. The study considers some parts of the opera that could be relevant to the topic: « Ding, ding, ding » (l’Horloge), « Toi, le coeur de la rose » (l’Enfant), « La cage, c’était pour mieux voir ta prestesse » (l’Écureuil). The analysis of these scenes shows that instruments used by Ravel to activate empathy with the audience create a distance from the poetic idea expressed in the previous opera L’heure espagnole. The final part of the article is focused on the comparison between L’enfant et les sortilèges and the Histoires naturelles, establishing a parallelism among temperaments and emotional profiles of the anthropomorphic animals. The results of the research reveal a huge change in prospective while composing L’enfant et les sortilèges, in defining strategies used by Ravel in emotional communication with listeners.