Personification

Definition

It can be challenging for a reader to connect immediately with an idea or situation. However, personification is one of the most efficient and vivid methods writers can use to evoke a response. This technique gives human qualities, such as thoughts, emotions, gestures and movement, to inanimate objects and abstract concepts.

For example, you might be preparing for a cruel English test on Shakespeare’s sonnets and your pen is going insane with all of the essays you are rewriting. Even your notebook is hoping for a break. Outside, the wind is calling your name and the sun is relaxing with its feet up on the clouds.

Each of these images use personification to convey the difficulty of revising for an examination when going outside is much more appealing. Of course, the English test cannot be cruel and it is impossible for a pen to go mad. A notebook is just a notebook and the sun doesn’t have feet.

Describing these signifiers in terms of human qualities is a terrific way of conveying the character’s attitude and creating the right atmosphere for a story.

Example of Personification from “Macbeth”

The ambitious Macbeth has just learnt that King Duncan has proclaimed his son, Malcolm, as the heir to the throne of Scotland. He says to the audience:

“[Aside] The Prince of Cumberland! that is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o’erleap,
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires:
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.”