What Is Personification - Definition and Examples

Personification is a figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is given human qualities or abilities. At times, as with this personification of the social-networking service Twitter, a writer may call attention to her use of the figurative device: Look, some of my best friends are tweeting. . . .But at the risk of unilaterally offending 14 million people, I need to say this: If Twitter were a person, it would be an emotionally unstable person. It would be that person we avoid at parties and whose calls we dont pick up. It would be the person whose willingness to confide in us at first seems intriguing and flattering but eventually makes us feel kind of gross because the friendship is unearned and the confidence is unjustified. The human incarnation of Twitter, in other words, is the person we all feel sorry for, the person we suspect might be a bit mentally ill, the tragic oversharer.(Meghan Daum, Tweeting: Inane or Insane? Times Union of Albany, New York, April 23, 2009) Often, however, personification is used less directly--in essays and advertisements, poems and stories--to convey an attitude, promote a product, or illustrate an idea. Personification As a Type of Simile or Metaphor Because personification involves making a comparison, it can be viewed as a special kind of simile (a direct or explicit comparison) or metaphor (an implicit comparison). In Robert Frosts poem Birches, for example, the personification of the trees as girls (introduced by the word like) is a type of simile: You may see their trunks arching in the woodsYears afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hairBefore them over their heads to dry in the sun. In the next two lines of the poem, Frost again uses personification, but this time in a metaphor comparing Truth to a plain-speaking woman: But I was going to say when Truth broke inWith all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm Because people have a tendency to look at the world in human terms, its not surprising that we often rely on personification (also known as prosopopoeia) to bring inanimate things to life. Personification in Advertising Have any of these people ever appeared in your kitchen: Mr. Clean (a household cleaner), Chore Boy (a scouring pad), or Mr. Muscle (an oven cleaner)? How about Aunt Jemima (pancakes), Capn Crunch (cereal), Little Debbie (snack cakes), the Jolly Green Giant (vegetables), Poppin Fresh (also known as the Pillsbury Doughboy), or Uncle Ben (rice)? For over a century, companies have relied heavily on personification to create memorable images of their products--images that often appear in print advertisements and TV commercials for those brands. Iain MacRury, a professor of consumer and advertising studies at the University of East London, has discussed the role played by one of the worlds oldest trademarks, Bibendum, the Michelin Man: The familiar Michelin logo is a celebrated instance of the art of advertising personification. A person or cartoon character becomes the embodiment of a product or brand--here Michelin, manufacturers of rubber products and, notably, tires. The figure is familiar in itself and audiences routinely read this logo--depicting a cartoon man made of tires--as a friendly character; he personifies the product range (in particular Michelin tires) and animates both product and brand, representing a culturally recognized, practical and commercial presence--reliably there, friendly and trusted. The movement of personification is close to the heart of what all good advertising tends to try to achieve.(Iain MacRury, Advertising. Routledge, 2009) In fact, its hard to imagine what advertising  would be like without the figure of personification. Heres just a small sample of the countless popular slogans (or taglines) that rely on personification to market products ranging from toilet paper to life insurance. Kleenex says bless you.(Kleenex facial tissues)Nothing hugs like Huggies.(Huggies Supreme diapers)Unwrap a smile.(Little Debbie snack cakes)Goldfish. The snack that smiles back.(Goldfish snack crackers)Carvel. Its what happy tastes like.(Carvel ice cream)Cottonelle. Looking out for the family.(Cottonelle toilet paper)The toilet tissue that really cares for Downunder.(Bouquets toilet paper, Australia)Youre in good hands with Allstate.(Allstate Insurance Company)Taste me! Taste me! Come on and taste me!(Doral cigarettes)What do you feed a machine with an appetite this big?(Indesit washing machine and Ariel Liquitabs, laundry detergent, UK)The heartbeat of America.(Chevrolet cars)The car that cares(Kia cars)Acer. We hear you.(Acer computers)How will you use us today?(Avery Labels)Baldwin Cooke. Products that say Thank You 365 days a year.(Baldwin Cooke calendars and business planners) Personification in Prose and Poetry Like other types of metaphors,  personification  is much more than an ornamental device added to a text to keep readers amused. Used effectively, personification encourages us to view our surroundings from a fresh perspective. As Zoltan Kovecses notes in  Metaphor: A Practical Introduction  (2002), Personification permits us to use knowledge about ourselves to comprehend other aspects of the world, such as time, death, natural forces, inanimate objects, etc. Consider how John Steinbeck uses personification in his short story Flight (1938) to describe the wild coast south of Monterey, California: The farm buildings huddled like the clinging aphids on the mountain skirts, crouched low to the ground as though the wind might blow them into the sea. . . .Five-fingered ferns hung over the water and dropped spray from their fingertips. . . .The high mountain wind coasted sighing through the pass and whistled on the edges of the big blocks of broken granite. . . .A scar of green grass cut across the flat. And behind the flat another mountain rose, desolate with dead rocks and starving little black bushes. . . .Gradually the sharp snaggled edge of the ridge stood out above them, rotten granite tortured and eaten by the winds of time. Pepe had dropped his reins on the horn, leaving direction to the horse. The brush grabbed at his legs in the dark until one knee of his jeans was ripped.​ As Steinbeck demonstrates, an important function of personification in literature  is to bring the inanimate world to life--and in this  story, in particular, to show how characters may be in conflict with a hostile environment. Now lets look at some other ways in which personification has been used to dramatize ideas and communicate experiences in prose and poetry. The Lake Is a MouthThese are the lips of the lake, on which no beard grows. It licks its chops from time to time.(Henry David Thoreau,  Walden)A Snickering, Flickering PianoMy stick fingers click with a snickerAnd, chuckling, they knuckle the keys;Light-footed, my steel feelers flickerAnd pluck from these keys melodies.(John Updike, Player Piano)Fingers of SunshineHadnt she known that something good was going to happen to her that morning--hadnt she felt it in every touch of the sunshine, as its golden finger-tips pressed her lids open and wound their way through her hair?(Edith Wharton,  The Mothers Recompense, 1925)The Wind Is a Playful ChildPearl Button swung on the little gate in front of the House of Boxes. It was the early afternoon of a sunshiny day with little winds playing hide-and-seek in it.(Katherine Mansfield, How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped, 1912)The Gentleman CallerBecause I could not stop for Death--He kindly stopped for me--The Carriage held but just Ourselves--An d Immortality.We slowly drove--He knew no hasteAnd I had put awayMy labor and my leisure too,For His Civility--We passed the School, where Children stroveAt Recess--in the Ring--We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain--We passed the Setting Sun--Or rather--He passed us--The Dews drew quivering and chill--For only Gossamer, my Gown--My Tippet--only Tulle--We paused before a House that seemedA Swelling of the Ground--The Roof was scarcely visible--The Cornice--in the GroundSince then--tis Centuries--and yetFeels shorter than the DayI first surmised the Horses HeadsWere toward Eternity--(Emily Dickinson, Because I could not stop for death)PinkPink is what red looks like when it kicks off its shoes and lets its hair down. Pink is the boudoir color, the cherubic color, the color of Heavens gates. . . . Pink is as laid back as beige, but while beige is dull and bland, pink is laid back with  attitude.(Tom Robbins, The Eight-Story Kiss.  Wild Ducks Flying Backward. Random House, 2005)Love Is a BrutePassions a good, stupid horse that will pull the  plough  six days a week if you give him the run of his heels on Sundays. But loves a nervous, awkward, over-mastering brute; if you cant rein him, its best to have no truck with him.(Lord Peter Wimsey in  Gaudy Night  by Dorothy L. Sayers)A Mirror and a LakeI am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.Whatever I see I swallow immediatelyJust as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.I am not cruel, only truthful--The eye of a little god, four-cornered.Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so longI think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.Faces and darkness separate us over and over.Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,Searching my reaches for what she really is.Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.I see her  back,  and reflect it faithfully.She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.I am important to her. She comes and go es.Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.In  me  she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old womanRises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.(Sylvia Plath, Mirror)Knocks and SighsThe glacier knocks in the cupboard,The desert sighs in the bed,And the crack in the tea-cup opensA lane to the land of the dead.(W.H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening)Devouring, Swift-Footed TimeDevouring Time, blunt thou the lions paws,And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tigers jaws,And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,And do  whateer  thou wilt, swift-footed Time,To the wide world and all her fading sweets;But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:O, carve not with thy hours my loves fair brow,Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;Him  in thy course untainted do allowFor beautys pattern to succeeding men.Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,My love s hall in my verse ever live young.(William Shakespeare, Sonnet 19) Its your turn now. Without feeling that youre in competition with Shakespeare  or Emily Dickinson, try your hand at creating a fresh example of personification. Simply take any inanimate object or abstraction and help us see or understand it in a new way by giving it human qualities or abilities.