I am running this program:

f = open( "animals.txt", "r")
g = f.read()
g1 = g.split(',') #turning the file into list
print g1

And I want this to come out:

['ELDEN', 'DORSEY', 'DARELL', 'BRODERICK', 'ALONSO']

Instead, I am getting this:

['"ELDEN"', '"DORSEY"', '"DARELL"', '"BRODERICK"', '"ALONSO"']

Does anyone know how to remove the inner quotes

Try a list comprehension which allows you to effectively and efficiently reassign the list to an equivalent list with quotes removed.

g1 = [i.replace('"', '') for i in g1] # remove quote from each element