Organizer #4: Personification and Metaphor
Personification is giving human qualities to animals or objects.
Examples: a smiling moon, a jovial sun
In the poem "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath, the mirror, the "I" in the first line, is given the ability to speak, see, and swallow. It also describes itself as being truthful.
I am silver and exact.
I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful --
To practice constructing personification, choose a word from List II or another word that names an action. Write this word next to the word from List I. Then create a sentence with the words you've selected.
List I
sun
sea
stone
dawn
morning
List II
listens
remembers
dances
dreams
guides
Example: stone listens
The stone listens to the grass as it grows.
Metaphor is a figure of speech in which a comparison is made between two seemingly unrelated objects without using "like" or "as." However, it is not to be confused with simile, metonymy, personification, or allusion.
A metaphor consists of two main parts: the subject to which the metaphor is applied and the metaphorical term or symbol through which the subject is represented.
Example: Life is a yo-yo. It's a series of ups and downs.
Here, "life" is the subject and "yo-yo" is the symbol that represents the subject.