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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
The Bean-Field
Explanation and Analysis—Impatient Beans:
A humorous and enlivening bit of personification appears in "The Bean-Field" as Thoreau describes his little farm:
Meanwhile my beans, the length of whose rows, added together, was seven miles already planted, were impatient to be hoed, for the earliest had grown considerably before the latest were in the ground; indeed they were not easily to be put off. What was the meaning of this so steady and self-respecting, this small Herculean labor, I knew not.
Related Themes:
The Ponds
Explanation and Analysis—Lips of the Lake:
Throughout Walden, Thoreau personifies natural features to make them seem integral to the human experience. In "The Ponds," Thoreau personifies the placid lake as having "lips":
Unlock with LitCharts A+These are the lips of the lake on which no beard grows. It licks its chaps from time to time. When the water is at its height, the alders, willows, and maples send forth a mass of fibrous red roots several feet long from all sides of their stems in the water, and to the height of three or four feet from the ground, in the effort to maintain themselves[...]
Related Themes:
Brute Neighbors
Explanation and Analysis—Ant Armies:
In "Brute Neighbors" Thoreau employs personification and dramatic visual imagery to describe a "war" between two groups of ants:
Unlock with LitCharts A+One day when I went out to my wood-pile [...] I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly [...] the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black.
Related Themes:
