Personification in Reverse
The comparison can run the other way
- Unit 5 gave a human trait to a nonhuman thing. Here the CED reverses it.
- By assigning the qualities of a nonhuman object, entity or idea to a person or character, the narrator, character or speaker communicates an attitude about that person.
- So describing a man as a machine, a wall or a weather system is the same device running backwards.
Assigning nonhuman qualities to a person primarily...
So the evidence points first at whoever made the comparison.
The purpose is an attitude
- The CED is explicit about what this device does: it communicates an attitude about that person or character.
- Not characterises them — communicates the speaker's attitude toward them.
- So the evidence points primarily at whoever made the comparison.
Naming what the comparison ____ the person is usually how you find the attitude.
Agency, feeling, or the capacity to be reasoned with.
It usually takes something away
- Giving a person the qualities of an object generally removes agency, feeling, or the capacity to be reasoned with.
- He was a wall says he cannot be argued with; she went on like a clock says she cannot be interrupted.
- Name what the comparison denies the person — that is usually the attitude.
What attitude does this comparison communicate?
Sort each description of a person by the attitude behind it.
This device is always hostile toward the person described.
It can be admiration (a tide) or pity (a shut room) — read the object's associations.
This device points at the speaker, not the subject. The CED says it communicates an attitude about that person — so calling someone a wall is primary evidence about the person who reached for that comparison, and only secondary evidence about the one described.
Match each comparison to what it displaces.
The displaced capacity is usually the whole complaint.
Not always hostile
- The attitude can be admiration: a person described as a tide is unstoppable, not inhuman.
- It can be pity: a person described as a shut room is someone who has been closed, not someone cold.
- So read the attitude from the object's associations, not from a rule.
Put the reverse-personification pass in order.
The attitude is the CED's stated purpose, so it comes last and matters most.
A reverse-personification pass
- Name the person and the nonhuman thing whose qualities they are given.
- Say which quality was transferred, and what human capacity it displaces.
- Then name the attitude the speaker has thereby communicated.
Her mother went on like a clock. The transferred quality is regularity; what it displaces is the capacity to be interrupted or asked. The daughter has not called her mother cruel — she has said that speaking to her is not a two-way act, which is a sharper complaint.
Assigning nonhuman qualities to a person communicates an attitude about that person — so the evidence points first at the speaker. The comparison usually displaces a human capacity (agency, feeling, being reasoned with); name what it denies. The attitude may be hostile, admiring or pitying.