אנומורפוזיס

A comparison, not a decoration

• Personification 拟人 is a type of comparison that assigns a human trait or quality to a nonhuman object, entity or idea.
• The CED classes it as a comparison, which means everything you know about metaphor applies.
• There is a main subject, a transferred quality, and a context that decides which quality.

When a clock “complains,” it has acquired a human trait and an unusually full schedule.

It characterises

• The CED ends the sentence with a purpose: thus characterizing that object, entity or idea.
• So personification does to a thing what description does to a person.
• The analysis therefore names a character — what kind of thing this river, grief or house now is.

Explain the specific human trait and its contribution in context.

Name the exact human trait

• The wind is personified identifies the device and stops.
• Which human trait? Patience, malice, indifference, exhaustion — each characterises differently.
• The trait is the analysable content; the label is not.

Who is doing the personifying

• A personification in a first-person poem belongs to the speaker, not to the world.
• A speaker who finds the sea patient has told you something about themselves.
• So ask, as with any comparison, what choosing it says about the one who chose it.

A personification pass

• Name the nonhuman subject and the exact human trait assigned.
• Say how that trait characterises the subject.
• Then ask what the choice of that particular trait says about the speaker.