Personification Examples

Are you looking out for some easy personification examples? Then read this article for some examples of personification.

Personification is one of the most common and easiest figure of speech in English language. Before we move on to personification examples, let us first see what exactly personification means. “The act of attributing human characteristics to inhuman or inanimate objects”, is the simplest personification definition. We use personification in our day to day life, like for example, ‘the alarm clock screams at me every morning’. In this sentence, the human quality of screaming has been associated with the alarm clock. The following examples of personifications will make the concept more clear.

Personification Samples

• The branches bowed to the ground.
• And like the flowers beside them chill and shiver, Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone – Robert Frost.
• The Halloween pumpkin smiled at me.
• The trees were begging for water.
• Snow speaks to the people, its falling above in the glooming sunlight. Its white sparkling voice echoes as it falls through the air.
• Art is a jealous mistress.
• Velvet remembers how it wrapped around me. Keeping me warm on a snowy day. Velvet remembers how it laid softly on my bed. Velvet tells me not to forget it.
• The chicken hurled insult after insult at me.
• Only the champion daisy trees were serene. After all, they were part of a rain forest already two thousand years old and scheduled for eternity, so they ignored the men and continued to rock the diamondbacks that slept in their arms. It took the river to persuade them that indeed the world was altered. – Toni Morrison, “Tar Baby”.
• The angry lightning danced across the sky.
• The camera loves me.
• The wind whispered softly in my ears.
• The road isn’t built that can make it breathe hard! – slogan for Chevrolet automobiles.
• Oreo: Milk’s favorite cookie. – slogan for Oreo cookies.
• The only monster here is the gambling monster that has enslaved your mother! I call him Gamblor, and it’s time to snatch your mother from his neon claws! – Homer Simpson, “The Simpsons”.
• The wind wailed as it moved around the haunted house.
• The house was lazy and unkempt.
• Stars bring me up with you, bring me to the place you sleep. I wonder how they do it.
• The bit chewed into the cow’s mouth.
• Hey Diddle, Diddle, the cat and the fiddle. The cow jumped over the moon; the little dog laughed to see such sport. And the dish ran away with the spoon. – Mother Goose.
• The sun was playing hide and seek with the clouds.
• My computer hates to do my homework.
• The moon winks at me every night.

Personification Examples in Poetry

Given below is a poem which serves as personification examples in poems. This poem can also be considered as classic personification examples in literature. Now that you are aware of what personification is, and have seen some personification sentences examples, consider the following poem as personification lesson plan.

Ode to Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o’er-brimmed their clammy cell.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,–

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

By – John Keats.

These were some personification examples for kids and adults. You can read more on grammar & composition. For more ideas on personification examples, you can practice personification worksheets online.