How does giving human qualities to a non-human thing create meaning in a poem?
Topic 5.5 Figurative language: identify and explain the function of personification, the attribution of human qualities to a non-human thing.
A focused answer to AP English Literature Topic 5.5 (skill category FIG), covering personification, how attributing human qualities to a non-human thing shapes meaning and attitude, and how to analyze personification rather than merely spot it.
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What this topic is asking
Topic 5.5 develops Figurative Language (FIG) through personification. The College Board (skill FIG-6.C) asks you to identify personification, the attribution of human qualities to a non-human thing, and to explain its function. Personification is not just a decorative flourish; by giving a thing human feelings or actions, a poet shapes the reader's attitude toward it, turning the wind into a menace, the sea into an indifferent old woman, or death into a courteous visitor. The skill is to read what the human qualities achieve.
What personification is
The figure works by inviting the reader to feel about the thing as they would about a person. Once the wind "pries" and is "jealous," we respond to it as we would to a hostile human, with wariness rather than the neutrality we give weather.
The function of personification
Personification and theme
Because personification lends an inner life, it often carries a poem's theme about its subject. A sea personified as indifferent advances a view of nature as vast and uncaring; a season personified as merciful advances a view of time as gentle. When you read personification, ask what view of the thing, of nature, time, death, the human qualities imply, because that view is frequently the poem's larger claim.
Reading personification
Why this matters for the exam
Personification appears on the multiple choice section (questions ask the function of human qualities given to a thing) and is a common figurative-language focus of the poetry analysis essay (Free Response Question 2). The high-scoring move is to read the attitude the personification builds and the view of its subject it implies, rather than labelling the device.
Try this
Q1. What is personification? [Recall]
- Cue. The attribution of human qualities, feelings, or actions to a non-human thing, an object, an animal, a force, or an abstraction, giving it an inner life it does not literally have.
Q2. A poem describes autumn as "stripping the trees with a thief's quiet hands." What does this personification achieve? [Short explanation]
- Cue. Making autumn a thief gives the season stealth and a faint menace, so the loss of leaves becomes a quiet robbery, and the personification builds an attitude of mournful unease an essay should read rather than just identify as a device.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of College Board exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
AP 2024 (multiple choice, style)1 marksA poem describes the wind as 'prying at the windows, jealous of the warmth inside.' The personification most directly functions to (A) report the weather (B) make the wind a hostile, envious presence that menaces the safety of the house (C) establish the rhyme (D) name the speaker (E) describe the season only.Show worked answer →
Answer: (B). The skill is reading the function of personification.
Giving the wind human jealousy and the human act of prying turns it from weather into a hostile presence, so the personification builds menace and makes the warmth inside feel precarious. The human qualities carry the meaning.
Why not the others: (A) it is more than a weather report; (C) rhyme is not its function; (D) it names no speaker; (E) it does more than mark a season.
Markers reward students who read what human qualities given to a thing achieve, not just that personification appears.
AP 2023 (poetry analysis, style)6 marksRead carefully the following original poem in which the speaker personifies the sea as a patient, indifferent old woman. Then write a well-developed essay analyzing how the poet uses personification to develop the poem's meaning.Show worked answer →
Free Response Question 2 (poetry analysis), 6-point rubric (1 thesis, 4 evidence and commentary, 1 sophistication).
Thesis (1 point): claim what the personification does, e.g. "By making the sea a patient, indifferent old woman, the poet renders nature as neither cruel nor kind but simply outlasting us."
Evidence and commentary (4 points): tie the human qualities given to the sea, patience, indifference, to the attitude they build, explaining the effect.
Sophistication (1 point): show how the personification makes the sea both comforting and chilling, so its indifference is also a kind of peace.
Related dot points
- Topic 5.4 Figurative language: identify and explain the function of a metaphor, including the extended metaphor or conceit sustained across a poem.
A focused answer to AP English Literature Topic 5.4 (skill category FIG), covering the function of metaphor in poetry, the extended metaphor or conceit, the tenor and vehicle of a comparison, and how to analyze what a metaphor contributes.
- Topic 5.2 Figurative language: distinguish between the literal and figurative meanings of words and phrases and explain how the figurative meaning shapes the poem.
A focused answer to AP English Literature Topic 5.2 (skill category FIG), covering the difference between literal and figurative meaning, how to recognize when language is being used figuratively, and how to read figurative meaning rather than paraphrase the literal sense.
- Topic 5.6 Figurative language: identify and explain the function of an allusion, a reference to a person, place, event, or text outside the poem.
A focused answer to AP English Literature Topic 5.6 (skill category FIG), covering what an allusion is, how a reference to something outside a poem imports meaning, and how to analyze the function of an allusion rather than just recognize it.
- Topic 5.3 Figurative language: explain the function of specific words and phrases in a poem, including their connotation, sound, and placement.
A focused answer to AP English Literature Topic 5.3 (skill category FIG), covering how specific words and phrases function in a poem through connotation, sound, and placement, and how to analyze word choice rather than merely identify it.
- Topic 2.5 Figurative language: identify imagery (sensory detail) in a poem and explain its function in creating mood, conveying the speaker's attitude, and shaping meaning.
A focused answer to AP English Literature Topic 2.5 (skill category FIG), covering sensory imagery beyond the visual, how imagery builds mood and conveys attitude, and how to analyze the function of an image rather than just identify it.
- Topic 2.6 Figurative language: identify simile and metaphor and explain the function of the comparison, including what each term of the comparison contributes to the poem's meaning.
A focused answer to AP English Literature Topic 2.6 (skill category FIG), covering simile and metaphor, the difference between literal and figurative meaning, how to read what a comparison contributes, and how to analyze a figure of speech rather than merely label it.
Sources & how we know this
- AP English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description — College Board (2024)