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Personification
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What is Personification?

Personification is a literary device in which abstract concepts, objects, or non-human forces are given human qualities, behaviors, or voices. It appears across poetry, drama, prose fiction, and religious texts, making it a central subject in English composition, literary analysis, and rhetoric courses. The device carries genuine intellectual weight because it reveals how writers construct meaning—transforming ideas like death, evil, or justice into tangible presences that readers can engage with emotionally and critically. Works such as Shakespeare's Othello, Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Frost's "Out Out," and Kinnell's "After Making Love We Hear Footsteps" all use personification to animate themes that would otherwise remain abstract, making them rich sources for academic study.

Student papers on this topic approach personification from several directions. Literary explication essays closely analyze how a single poem or passage deploys the device, as seen in work on Frost and Kinnell. Character-focused essays examine figures like Iago as embodiments of evil, treating a human character as a personified abstraction. Comparative and thematic essays link texts across genres—connecting Morrison, Dunbar, and Miller through shared symbolic language, or tracing the personification of Satan across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Rhetorical analyses, such as those focusing on Selzer's "The Knife," examine how personification functions as a persuasive and artistic strategy.

A strong essay on personification grounds its thesis in specific textual evidence, identifying not just where the device appears but what interpretive work it performs—how it shapes tone, advances theme, or positions the reader. Evidence drawn from close reading of language, imagery, and context carries the most weight. A common pitfall is treating personification as mere decoration; the strongest essays argue that it is structurally meaningful, showing how removing it would fundamentally alter a work's effect or argument.

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Similarities and differences between Greek and Roman deities

In ancient times traditions, histories and other elements of society were passed down by the way of stories told from one generation to another. Ancient Greek culture predates Roman culture.

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Telephone Conversation by Soyinka

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Stephen Dedalus and Felicitas Taylor: adolescent journeys to adulthood

Comparative Study of Stephen Dedalus from James Joyce's "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man" to Felicitas Taylor from Mary Gordon's "The Company of Women"

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Women's roles and power in Homer's Odyssey

The roles women take in The Odyssey are as varied as society itself. There are good women, weak women, caretakers and even monsters. This paper will discuss three chief aspects women's roles in The Odyssey.

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Cyril of Alexandria's Christology and the unity of divine and human natures

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Nature and materialism in Wordsworth's "The World Is Too Much With Us"

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was an English poet and writer widely-acclaimed for his literary works during the English Romantic era. Born on April 7, 1770, in Cumberland, England, Wordsworth was born to an affluent…

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Gender and power in Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain

'woman,' as was understood by a resident of Europe during the Middle Ages, was either the mother of Jesus or the physical embodiment of Eve's sin. In the rhetorical discourse of courtly love, women functioned either as…

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Gender perspective and characterization in Nabokov's Lolita

Nabokov's famous novel, Lolita, would have some important and essential differences had it been written by a woman. A female writer would have created a more complex and sympathetic characterization for Lolita,…

Paper High School

Cultural identity and assimilation in Ron Welburn's poetry

Native American literature is interesting in and of itself but also when the reader understands the cultural perspective of that population. Part of this interest comes from the fact that the Native Americans were the…

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Personification and alliteration in Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death"

In "Because I could not stop for Death," Emily Dickinson personifies Death and sees him as a gentleman caller that is accompanying her on her carriage ride, presumably to her final resting place.

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