Question

State the difference between personification, metaphor and a simile.

Answer 1

Hint: To answer this question we have to differentiate between personification, metaphor and simile are as follows; one among the three is giving objects that are inanimate, human characteristics or behavior, while another word here is basically giving a comparison between phrases that give the similar meaning and one of them is used to give emphasis to any phrase. To distinguish between them we can also use examples.

Complete answer:
It is very easy to distinguish between the three; personification, a metaphor and a simile. They do not have much in common except the fact that all three are poetic devices often utilized by poets.

Personification: As the name suggests, characteristics of a person are involved here. When any object that is not alive or isn’t human, if by imagination, we give them human behavior or associate any human characteristics to them, we call it as personification. Example: “The happiness of the sun.” Here ‘sun’ is a non-living thing, and so in real sense, the sun cannot be happy, but here we have used personification to imply that the sun shining brightly is the sun’s happiness.

Metaphor: Metaphors are widely used in poetry in order to bring emphasis to any given phrase in a poem. While using metaphors we are able to associate a different meaning to certain phrases. It is done to visualize some concepts which we might not be able to understand, so when we associate it with different things we will understand it better. Example: “feeling blue”, here we know that even though blue is just a color, feeling blue would mean to be sad.

Simile: Similes as the name suggests is normally used to emphasize similarities or to make creative comparisons. The main objective is to bring certain lines to people’s attention and keep them entertained. Often words like ‘as’ or ‘like’ are used to put similes into action. Example: “as big as an elephant”, here we can associate anything big to that of the size of an elephant.

Note: There are some poetic devices called alliteration and onomatopoeia which are commonly used in poetry. But most of the time we do not know how to distinguish between them because both of them are associated with sounds of words. The basic difference with which we can recognize them are;
- We make use of alliteration in a poem by giving a few words one after another which have similar beginnings or the first letters or sounds would be the same for a few consecutive words in a phrase, basically there will be a repetition of consonant sounds. Example: “tornados tore”
- We generally bring in onomatopoeia to bring life to the poem. It is associated with sounds literally, as when we need to express sounds in a poem, it is known as onomatopoeia. Example: “zoom”- the sound of a plane, “tick-tock”- sound made by a clock.