In the following passage from Act 1, Raina personifies Bluntschli's pistol, which he left out in plain view of the Bulgarian officer who entered the house searching for him:
RAINA: Your pistol! It was staring that officer in the face all the time. What an escape!
The personification in this passage is used as a device to emphasize and call audience attention to the danger of Bluntschli's situation. The pistol's presence in the room was so significant and potentially life-altering that it was figuratively "staring [the] officer in the face."
The figurative language also highlights the incompetence of the Bulgarian officer. In part, this incompetence stems from the officer's misogyny: he did not think to overly question Raina, nor examine her room in too much detail, assuming her "naturally" innocent and incapable of deceit. Similarly, he does not question the motives of Raina's mother, whom he views as an upper class woman with inscrutable "feminine morality."
This instance of personification takes on an additional dimension when compared to other similes in the play that dehumanize soldiers. These similes, which compare soldiers to bullets or peas, portray them as tools or instruments rather than living human beings. It is both incisive and darkly humorous to personify weapons and simultaneously dehumanize soldiers.
