Back to Basics: Personification

We will take a look at personification today as we continue our study of figurative language. What exactly is personification?

Personification is defined as the application of human characteristics upon something nonhuman. This can be showing an inanimate object, concept, event, or animal through the use of human qualities or characteristics.

Disney's Beauty and the Beast is a prime example of personification.

Because of its prevalence in cartoons, fables, and other children’s media, personification and its subsets are often some of the easiest forms of figurative language for many to understand. After all, how many of us grew up watching Disney films where a clock and a candlestick held conversations and argued with a teapot or the main characters were talking animals?

So personification is just talking furniture or animals?
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Not quite. The use of personification can include fully personified images such as these as well as anthropomorphism, a subset of personification showing animals with human-like attributes, personalities, and qualities. However, the majority of instances are much more subtle. 

Have you ever heard someone refer to a car, boat, or gun as “she?” What about saying flames “danced” or leaves “skipped over the ground?” These are all examples of personification as well.

Fans of Doctor Who may remember numerous references to the TARDIS as a female entity. While the ship is canonically a living being, the TARDIS is certainly not humanoid let alone human. Except for one particular episode, “The Doctor’s Wife,” where the TARDIS is given a human body and is finally able to communicate directly with The Doctor. This is an example of how different forms of personification can be applied to a single concept.

You can see examples of personification in a number of old cliches.

Time waits for no one.

The sun is peaking through the clouds.

My mouth tends to run away with me.

Why do writers use personification?
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Personification is used for much the same reason as any other type of figurative language. Sometimes personifying a concept can help to better illustrate it for your audience to understand. In other cases, it can make it more appealing to the target audience.

When dealing with difficult or controversial topics, personification can also be used to create a bit of distancing to make it more palatable and easy to digest. This is why it is a staple of fairy tales, fables, and parables. The speculative genres grew from these and often make heavy use of personification in many forms for the same reason.

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Thank you for stopping by for this rather simple overview of personification. Please join me again in two weeks for our next discussion on the various kinds of figurative language.

As always, the elementary version of this lesson may be downloaded here.

If you have any questions or things you wish to discuss regarding personification, please feel free to comment below. I attempt to answer any comments within twenty-four hours, and I enjoy speaking with you.