Personification Examples in Literature
Example #1
Taken from L. M. Montgomery’s “The Green Gables Letters”,
“I hied me away to the woods—away back into the sun-washed alleys carpeted with fallen gold and glades where the moss is green and vivid yet. The woods are getting ready to sleep—they are not yet asleep but they are disrobing and are having all sorts of little bed-time conferences and whisperings and good-nights.”
The lack of activity in the forest has been beautifully personified as the forest getting ready to sleep, busy in bed-time chatting and wishing good-nights, all of which are human customs.
Example #2
Taken from Act I, Scene II of “Romeo and Juliet”,
“When well-appareled April on the heel
Of limping winter treads.”
There are two personification examples here. April cannot put on a dress, and winter does not limp and it does not have a heel on which a month can walk. Shakespeare personifies the month of April and the winter season by giving them two distinct human qualities.