The Cherry Orchard: Personification 1 key example

Reminding Anya that her grandfather and ancestors were serf-owners, "owners of living souls," Trophimof rhetorically asks whether she can feel human spirits looking at her from every tree, leaf, and stem. He then builds on the visual image of spirits in the trees, capturing his own relationship to the orchard through personification.

Your orchard frightens me. When I walk through it in the evening or at night, the rugged bark on the trees glows with a dim light, and the cherry trees seem to see all that happened a hundred and two hundred years ago in painful and oppressive dreams.

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At first, it seems as though Trophimof is frightened because of the ominous glow of the tree bark. As he proceeds, however, the haunting imagery gives way to haunting personification. Not only do the trees seem to glow, he imagines that they're capable of seeing, dreaming, and remembering. In Trophimof's view, the trees in the cherry orchard are witnesses of the suffering that took place on the Ranevskys' estate before the emancipation of the serfs. 

Throughout the play, Trophimof serves as a historian and moral voice. Plagued by the past—and the unwillingness of the characters around him to confront their personal history—he's never able to fully relax or enjoy himself. While Madame Ranevsky and Gayef see beauty and are reminded of pleasant memories when they look out at the cherry orchard, Trophimof sees the oppression of the serfs. In his view, the Russian people have not sufficiently addressed this history. He identifies with the trees, imagining that they, like him, return to the past in dark, painful dreams.