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Definition of Personification
Personification is a type of figurative language in which non-human things are described as having human attributes, as in the sentence, "The rain poured down on the wedding guests, indifferent... read full definition
Personification is a type of figurative language in which non-human things are described as having human attributes, as in the sentence, "The rain poured down... read full definition
Personification is a type of figurative language in which non-human things are described as having human attributes, as in the... read full definition
Personification
Explanation and Analysis—Doll House Items:
Near the beginning of the story, as the Burnell children marvel at the dollhouse they received as a gift, the narrator personifies several of the items in the house, as seen in the following passage:
The father and mother dolls, who sprawled very stiff as though they had fainted in the drawing-room, and their two little children asleep upstairs, were really too big for the doll’s house. They didn’t look as though they belonged. But the lamp was perfect. It seemed to smile at Kezia, to say, “I live here.” The lamp was real.
The narrator starts by personifying the dolls, describing how the father and mother dolls looked “as though they had fainted” in the drawing-room while the child dolls were “asleep upstairs.” While personifying dolls is quite common, the narrator then makes a more surprising move by personifying a lamp in the dollhouse, describing how it “seemed to smile at Kezia” and say, "I live here."
The narrator—who moves between different characters’ perspectives over the course of the story—uses personification here to communicate that they have moved into the minds of the children, whose imaginations lead them to animate the inanimate elements of the dollhouse. Kezia’s infatuation with the lamp highlights how, as the youngest, her sense of possibility is even more expansive than her older sisters’. This proves to be true as, later in the story, Kezia is the only one willing to challenge the classist norms in their community by treating the lower-class Kelvey sisters with care rather than cruelty.
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