Personification
What It Is..
 The act of giving human qualities to objects that are
NOT human
Why Is This Important?
 Readers can connect better with objects that are
personified.
 Descriptions are often more vivid with personification.
How Do I Find Personification?
 Look for non-living objects that have been given human
qualities.
 Seek to explain WHY the author has
described…whatever…as something human?
 Move to that interpretive level
Example #1
 …plump, sleek, arrogant mice…
 What can mice be?
 What can they not be and that humans can?
 What might this mean?
Example #2
And the echo sounded down the streets of heaven
Till it reached away back to that shadowy place,
Where Death waits with his pale, white horses.
Example #3 - From Scrubs…
Example #4 - From “Hip Hop is Dead”
Hip hop just died this mornin’
And she's dead, she's dead
Example #5 – From “It’s Not
Over”
Let’s start over.
I’ll try to do it right this time.
It’s not over.
Cause a part of me is dead and in the ground.
This love is killing me.
Example #6 – From “Blvd of Broken
Dreams”
I walk this empty street
On the boulevard of broken dreams
When the city sleeps
And I’m the only one
Examples
 The wind sang her mournful song through the falling leaves.
 Wind is being personified.
 Singing a “mournful song”
 Meaning?
 Wind reminds the speaker of a sad event?
 Falling leaves could represent death (Tree is dying) so the wind is
singing a sad song BY the falling of the leaves?
Examples
 The video camera observed the whole scene.
 Video camera is being personified.
 Giving it the ability to see…to “observe”
 The camera served as a witness to an event….it saw
(and recorded) the whole thing!