Writing can be so exciting and fun, especially when you have fully mastered the skill of clearly expressing yourself to your audience. Mastering the clear expression of your thoughts and ideas entails a lot of things, one among them being the ability to correctly use the many different types of literary devices. Now, talking about literary devices, what do you know about personification? Don’t worry if it doesn’t ring a bell; I’m going to take you through all you need to know about personification.

The definition of personification

Personification is a literary device in which an idea or object is given human attributes and feelings, or is represented as a person. Some people refer to personification as an anthropomorphic metaphor; this is also a valid definition. It is also common for writers to confuse anthropomorphism with personification. It’s important to note that personification and anthropomorphism are quite different from each other. Anthropomorphism occurs when a writer applies human qualities or characteristics to animals or deities. Unlike in personification, the application of human qualities in anthropomorphism is limited to only animals and not inanimate objects.

Let’s take a look at examples of sentences in which personification is used:

The school bell yelled at us at the end of the lunch break.

Even though the network connection was low, my computer still cooperated with me.

That picture says a lot about the nineteenth century.

The angry storm trampled the city.

The sun kissed my face when I opened the window.

The sunflowers hung their heads as they danced in the wind.

I could not call that night because my phone battery died.

The old man watched as the ATM spat some notes.

The seawater slapped the sides of the ship during the storm.

Just to clarify more on the difference between personification and anthropomorphism, even though the objects being referred to are given human qualities in personification, they are not made to behave like humans. This is contrary to anthropomorphism when the animals (and deities) are given human qualities and are made to behave like humans. I will briefly give examples in which anthropomorphism has been used just to ensure that you fully understand their differences. Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, and Thomas are all good examples of anthropomorphism in use. While Thomas is the only exception in that, he does not dress like a human being, all three talk and behave like human beings.

The uses of personification

To enhance imagination

If you just said, “my alarm was quite loud today morning.” Your readers may not get the exact picture of how loud your alarm was. You can say, “My alarm yelled at me today morning.” That helps paint a picture in your readers’ minds.

To create humor

You can take things a notch higher and introduce humor through personification. You can do this by avoiding normal or obvious ideas, and using sarcasm and irony in your work.

To demonstrate creativity

By associating human attributes to inanimate objects, you are demonstrating creativity as a writer. However, the connection between the former and the latter should make sense to the reader to clearly bring out the writer’s creativity.

Sources

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/personification
https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-personification.htm