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Pathos
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
Chapter 38
Explanation and Analysis—Spider Triage:
In Chapter 38, the narrator uses the metaphor of "sensory triage" to describe a skill that helps Gately in his sobriety journey. A sober counselor named Eugenio challenges Gately to prove that the talent does not in fact come from "The Spider," or addiction personified:
It was part of his gifts as a burglar: he can sort of turn his attention on and off like a light. Even when he was a resident here he’d had this prescient housebreaker’s ability to screen input, to do sensory triage.
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Eugenio’d lovingly confronted Gately early on about his special burglar’s selective attention and about how it could be dangerous because how can you be sure it’s you doing the screening and not The Spider. Gene called the Disease The Spider and talked about Feeding The Spider versus Starving The Spider and so on and so forth.
Related Themes:
Chapter 52
Explanation and Analysis—Feelings Hostage:
In Chapter 52, Avril makes Hal uncomfortable by insisting that he eat the apple he knows she was planning to eat for lunch. The narrator mentions that this kind of behavior is a pattern for Avril, and that Orin uses personification and simile to describe the dynamic it creates:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[Orin] said she went around with her feelings out in front of her with an arm around the feelings’ windpipe and a Glock 9 mm. to the feelings’ temple like a terrorist with a hostage, daring you to shoot.
Related Themes:
Chapter 71
Explanation and Analysis—Breathing Ceiling:
In Chapter 71, Gately wakes up in the hospital and notices that the ceiling looks like it is breathing. This personification leads him into a flashback to his impoverished childhood on the North Shore:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The ceiling was breathing. It bulged and receded. It swelled and settled. The room was in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital’s Trauma Wing. Whenever he looked at it, the ceiling bulged and then deflated, shiny as a lung. When Don was a massive toddler his mother had put them in a little beach house just back of the dunes off a public beach in Beverly. The place was affordable because it had a big ragged hole in the roof....The polyurethane [stapled over the hole] bulged and settled... like some monstrous vacuole inhaling and exhaling directly over little Gately, lying there, wide-eyed.
Related Themes:
Chapter 72
Explanation and Analysis—Death Herself:
In Chapter 72, Gately is lying in the hospital, where his dreams about his past are intermingled with what seem to be visions planted in his mind by the wraith of James Incandenza. In one dream, a woman from his childhood transforms into Joelle, who transforms into the personification of Death:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[I]n this dream, Mrs. Waite, who is Joelle, is Death. As in the figure of Death, Death incarnate. Nobody comes right out and says so; it’s just understood: Gately’s sitting here in this depressing kitchen interfacing with Death. Death is explaining that Death happens over and over, you have many lives, and at the end of each one (meaning life) is a woman who kills you and releases you into the next life.
Related Themes:
