Personification and Hyperbole

02/09/2012

Personification

*giving human characteristics to things, animals, or ideas.

Examples: The pencil flew out of my hand.

Blind justice.

Example

Example: “The wind yells while blowing."

The wind cannot yell. Only a living thing can yell.

The ancient car groaned into third gear.

The cloud scattered rain throughout the city.

The tropical storm slept for two days.

Pick a noun from this list sun

moonstarsskyseastonenightmountaindawnmorning

Pick a verb from this list tells

showsremindsteacheslistensremembersbringslooksdancesdreamsguidestakes

Place the two words next to each other and make a personification!

Example: noun=stone Verb=listens

The stone listens carefully to the grass as it grows around it.

The Wind Cries MaryAfter all the jacks are in their boxes And the clowns have all gone to bed

You can hear happiness staggering on down the street Footprints dressed in red

And the wind whispers Mary

A broom is drearily sweeping Up the broken pieces of yesterday’s life

Somewhere a queen is weeping Somewhere a king has no wife

And the wind, it cries Mary

The traffic lights they turn up blue tomorrow And shine their emptiness down on my bed

The tiny island sags downstream ‘Cause the life that lived is, is dead

And the wind screams Mary

Will the wind ever remember The names it has blown in the past

And with his crutch, it’s old age, and it's wisdom It whispers no, this will be the last

And the wind cries Mary

Hyperbole*an exaggeration

*used to heighten effect. It is not used to mislead the reader, but to emphasize a point.

Examples:

I nearly died laughing.

I tried a thousand times.

ExampleExample: She’s said so on several million

occasions.

I could sleep for a year.

This box weighs a ton.

I've told you a million times not to exaggerate.

Your mother is so small she does chin-ups on the curb.

Activity

Fill in the following blanks with a hyperbole:

That student is so lazy that..........................

That class was so boring (or exciting) that....................