On the Road: Personification 7 key examples

W. C. Fields, whom Kerouac alludes to multiple times in On the Road, was a writer and comedian. Fields's vibrant radio and film persona made him famous to any American with access to mass media. The second allusion in this passage is to Ernest Hemingway, a modernist author who wrote about his adventures in the States and abroad, and who (like Kerouac) drank heavily. Like his fellow Beat artists, Kerouac easily mixes high-brow and low-brow allusions and references in his work. Many of the allusions he makes in his works are to American artists such as Fields and Hemingway.

It's also worth noting the personification in the passage above: personified "real life" confronts Roland Major and turns him from a grumpy writer into someone with a charming smile. It's not obvious what this means, and a reader may come up with his or her own plausible interpretation. Perhaps Sal means that Major finds more happiness and satisfaction in the nighttime, and at these moments his "choleric" exterior fades away.

First, Sal's personified soul "leaps" to his destination. It's not clear whether he truly seeks what is in San Francisco or is simply driven by the same need to travel that propels the entire novel. Kerouac uses an impressionistic, stream of consciousness style to portray Sal's journey from Denver to the West Coast. Sal lists the places he passes through, sometimes with very brief imagery, such as when he calls Salt Lake City "a city of sprinklers," or characterizes Reno with "twinkling Chinese streets." These lists give the reader only glimpses into the sights of each city. The stream of consciousness writing here mimics Sal's travels: just as Sal only gets a few impressions of each place he goes through, the reader only has a few words with which to understand these landmarks.

Phrases such as "raw bulge and bulk of my American continent" are excellent examples of Kerouac's style. This description is part literal, part metaphorical: America does have a lot of literal bulk, and it does bulge out toward the sea from Sal's vantage point, but the "raw" adjective can only be metaphorical. Reasonable readers may come to their own conclusions as to what "raw" may mean in this sentence. That combination of literal and metaphorical works to create an image in the reader's mind of the eagle's eye view Sal has as he looks over mountains, plains, and coasts. It's not likely Sal can see over the entirety of the continent, but his travels allow him to imagine the scope of the country. 

The personified state of New York tosses a brown haze over the horizon that Sal imagines he can see. Sal contrasts this with California, and with a simile he calls California "white like washlines." It's not that lines used for drying clothes are generally white, but instead that white sheets and clothes are often hung up on clotheslines. Sal's pale imagery for California might be a reference to the fog there, and it might also reflect his feeling that there isn't anything on the West Coast for him—at least, not yet.

There's a lot of metaphorical language packed into this passage. Firstly, fury metaphorically spits from Dean's eyes, just as fire might spit from a volcano. (It's worth noting that the verb "spat" is often paired with literal or figurative fire in the English language, so this word choice suggests a blaze.) Secondly, "great glows of joy" beam from Dean's eyes when he's pleased. In both of these metaphors, his emotions are heated and bright. This likely isn't surprising to the reader at this point: Dean is a hot-tempered, emotional, and fickle man.

Dean's muscles are also personified here. As if they are a separate, autonomous part of him, they "[twitch] to live and go." This makes it seem as if Dean's drive to travel and explore comes from his very essence. 

Since Sal is the narrator, readers know that these observations come from him. Sal holds Dean in high regard and pays special attention to him, especially through his descriptions. This passage is one of many examples of Sal's nearly obsessive friendship with Dean. 

The Angel of Terror is the title of a 1922 mystery novel by Edgar Wallace, a prolific British writer whom Kerouac may well have read. Sal might be alluding to that book here, or possibly he's just using the phrase to suggest that the drivers whom Dean tailgates are terrified. After the "Angel of Terror" simile, Sal personifies the car as if it is a responsive horse or even an extension of Dean's body. The car "leaped to [Dean's] touch" in order to pass on the single-lane highway, a dangerous maneuver. Sal idiomatically says their car passed without getting into a wreck "by a hair," by which he means they barely made it. 

Sal metaphorically says his children will imagine him traveling "on the sidewalks of life," a slow and responsible manner of transportation that couldn't be further from how he actually lived. He claims his life is actually a metaphorical "riot," and then calls it a "senseless nightmare road," upon which a traveler goes much faster than on a sidewalk. This is yet another instance in which the road is not only a literal centerpiece of the novel, but also a symbol of the Beat way of life—fast, dangerous, and exciting.

Dean's departure is described with imagery: first of the "long red dusk" which produces a personified shadow that copies Dean's movements, then of trains. The locomotives cannot literally float above Dean, but perhaps this image is meant to convey that trains rush past with the same sort of senseless speed that Dean exhibits throughout the novel. Dean's personified shadow "[apes] his walks and thoughts and very being"—in other words, it copies him. This copy of Dean, through photographs, shadows, and writing, is all Sal will have left when Dean leaves.

The phrase "plain of night" is a metaphorical combination of two sights Sal sees as he comes into Dallhart: the nighttime sky and the flat, dark landscape of Texas. Like a star turned upside down, the town "lay glimmering." Sal goes on to describe the night sky by personifying both the moon and the morning star. He says the moon "fattened" and became larger. He also describes the moon's color changes throughout the night with imagery: first it's rusty, and then it's mellow, which some readers might understand as suggesting a softer color. The moon rolls down the sky, and as dawn comes nearer the "morning star contended," a second personification which suggests the moon and the brightest star are competing for spots in the sky.