Previous
Motifs
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
Time Passes, 2
Explanation and Analysis—The Dark Tide:
When the Ramsays leave the house in the beginning of "Time Passes," the rooms are plunged into darkness. In the beginning of Chapter 2, Woolf describes the steady onslaught of darkness using a potent combination of hyperbole, metaphor, and personification:
...with the lamps all put out, the moon sunk, and a thin rain drumming on the roof a downpouring of immense darkness began. Nothing, it seemed, could survive the flood, the profusion of darkness which, creeping at keyholes and crevices, stole round window blinds, came into bedrooms, swallowed up here a jug and basin, there a bowl of red and yellow dahlias, there the sharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of drawers. Not only was furniture confounded; there was scarcely anything left of body or mind by which one could say 'This is he' or 'This is she.'
Time Passes, 3
Explanation and Analysis—The Night Dealer:
In Chapter 3 of "Time Passes," as the narrator reflections on the passage of time and the articulation of the changing seasons, Winter itself transforms, through personification, into a card dealer:
Unlock with LitCharts A+But what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of the wave. Night, however, succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of them in store and deals them equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers. They lengthen, they darken.
Related Themes:
Time Passes, 10
Explanation and Analysis—The Murmur of the Sea:
In "Time Passes," the middle portion of To the Lighthouse, the timescale of the novel abruptly zooms out from the thought-to-thought stream of "The Window" to a grand, practically geologic, scale. The narrator meditates on the environment throughout this section, and how it varyingly changes and remains constant amid the passage of time. In Chapter 10 of "Time Passes," Woolf uses sound imagery and personification to characterize the sea after the conclusion of World War I:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Then indeed peace had come. Messages of peace breathed from the sea to the shore. Never to break its sleep any more, to lull it rather more deeply to rest and whatever the dreamers dreamt holily, dreamt wisely to confirm — what else was it murmuring — as Lily Briscoe laid her head on the pillow in the clean still room and heard the sea. Through the open window the voice of the beauty of the world came murmuring, too softly to hear exactly what it said — but what mattered if the meaning were plain?
