Personification, the giving of human attributes to nonhuman objects, is a powerful way to foster empathy in your readers.

Personification is exactly what it sounds like: giving human attributes to nonhuman objects. Also known as anthropomorphism, personification is a powerful way to foster empathy in your readers.

Think about personification as a specific type of imagery. You can describe a nonhuman object through the five senses, and do so by giving it human descriptions. You can even impute thoughts and emotions—mental events—to a nonhuman or even nonliving thing. This time, we’ll give human attributes to a car—see our personification examples below!

1. Personification (using sight): The car ran a marathon down the highway.
2. Personification (using sound): The car coughed, hacked, and spluttered.
3. Personification (using touch): The car was smooth as a baby’s bottom.
4. Personification (using taste): The car tasted the bitter asphalt.
5. Personification (using smell): The car needed a cold shower.
6. Personification (using mental events): The car remembered its first owner fondly.

Notice how we don’t directly say the car is like a human—we merely describe it using human behaviors. Personification exists at a unique intersection of imagery and metaphor, making it a powerful literary device that fosters empathy and generates unique descriptions.

Personification Writing Exercise

Try writing personification yourself! In the above example, we chose a random object and personified it through the five senses. It is your turn to do the same thing: find a concrete noun and describe it like it’s human.

Here are two examples:

The ancient, threadbare rug was clearly tired of being stepped on. My phone issued notifications with the grimly efficient extroversion of a sorority chapter president.

Now start writing your own! Your descriptions can be active or passive, but the goal is to foster empathy in the reader’s mind by giving the object human traits.