Personification
• Personification is a kind of
metaphor in which a nonhuman thing
or quality is talked about as if it were
human.
• The angry, brooding storm
clouds pelted me with their
disapproval.
The sky is low by Emily Dickinson
Personification
THE sky is low, the clouds are mean,
A travelling flake of snow
Across a barn or through a rut
Debates if it will go.
A narrow wind complains all day
How some one treated him;
Nature, like us, is sometimes caught
Without her diadem.
Metaphor
• Metaphors are comparisons
between two unlike things, in which
one thing becomes another thing
without the use of the word like, as,
than, or resembles.
• My mind is a sailboat that
wanders with the wind.
Fifth of July by Anonymous
My family is an expired firecracker
set off by the blowtorch of divorce. We lay
Metaphor
scattered in many directions.
My father is the wick, badly burnt
but still glowing softly.
My mother is the blackened paper fluttering
down,
blowing this way and that, unsure where to
land.
My sister is the fallen, colorful parachute,
lying in a tangled knot, unable to see the
beauty she
holds.
My brother is the fresh, untouched powder that
was protected from the flame. And I,
I am the singed, outside papers, curled away
from everything, silently cursing
the blowtorch.
Imagery
• Imagery is language that appeals to
the senses. It creates a vivid
description of settings, characters,
and actions.
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Touch
Taste
Sight
Sound
Smell
My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
Imagery
Independent Practice
1. Read and identify three (3) examples of imagery
in the poem “The Bear” by Galway Kinnell. To
which sense(s) does each example appeal?
2. Read and identify two (2) examples of metaphor
in the poem “Shall I Compare Thee to a
Summer’s Day?” Tell what is being compared in
each example.
3. Read and identify one (1) example of
personification in the poem “Shall I Compare
Thee to a Summer’s Day?” Explain your answer.
4. Ticket Out the Door: Use an example from
your assignment to describe how authors use
figurative language (metaphor, personification,
imagery, etc.) to make the reader react to the
poem.