Personification is a figure of speech in which "inanimate
objects are endowed with human form, character, traits, or sensibilities." In
Wednesday Wars, there are some good examples of personification in
the first paragraph of Chapter 3, entitled "November." In this paragraph, the narrator
is describing the setting. He says,
"November dripped
onto Long Island, as it did every year. The days turned gray and damp,
and a hovering mist licked
everything."
Human
characteristics are attributed to both November and the mist. November, which is an
inanimate concept, is described as being capable of dripping, and the mist, equally
inanimate by nature, is said to have "licked everything." The personifications provide
vivid imagery, making the weather tangible and establishing a mood of drabness and
foreboding.
Four sentences into the same paragraph,
the narrator provides another very effective example of personification when he
says,
"The azaleas lost
the remnants of their white and pink blossoms, and then many of their leaves, and since
they were half-naked and embarrassed, my father wrapped
them in tight burlap..."
The
azaleas, which have been stripped of their blossoms and leaves by the changing of the
seasons, are, humanlike, "embarrassed" because of their "half-naked" state. The
personification provides a colorful and eminently understandable image, with the azaleas
being likened to a woman, disconcerted at being so inappropriately exposed (Chapter
3).
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