Term

=Personification= the act of describing nonhuman or abstract things with human qualities or characteristics

The Bear, by Robert Frost

The bear puts both arms around the tree above her And draws it down as if it were a lover And its choke cherries lips to kiss good-bye, Then lets it snap back upright in the sky. Her next step rocks a boulder on the wall (She's making her cross-country in the fall). Her great weight creaks the barbed-wire in its staples As she flings over and off down through the maples, Leaving on one wire moth a lock of hair. Such is the uncaged progress of the bear. The world has room to make a bear feel free; The universe seems cramped to you and me. Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage That all day fights a nervous inward rage~ His mood rejecting all his mind suggests. He paces back and forth and never rests The me-nail click and shuffle of his feet, The telescope at one end of his beat~ And at the other end the microscope, Two instruments of nearly equal hope, And in conjunction giving quite a spread. Or if he rests from scientific tread, 'Tis only to sit back and sway his head Through ninety odd degrees of arc, it seems, Between two metaphysical extremes. He sits back on his fundamental butt With lifted snout and eyes (if any) shut, (lie almost looks religious but he's not), And back and forth he sways from cheek to cheek, At one extreme agreeing with one Greek~ At the other agreeing with another Greek Which may be thought, but only so to speak. A baggy figure, equally pathetic When sedentary and when peripatetic.

In The Bear, Robert Frost uses personification to describe the actions of two bears. The uncaged bear is first said to pull the branch "as if it were a lover." The word "lover" usually implies a relationship that has an emotional connection as in a human relationship, and one generally does not see bears as having a partner who is meant for life-long companionship rather than solely for procreation.

The caged bear is obviously compared to man. The bear's actions are being compared to those of someone contemplating science and metaphysics. One is able to better imagine the look and actions of the bear through the comparison to a religious person. "Lifted snout and eyes...shut" could give the reader many images, but one gets the image of a certain sense of calm and pensive contemplation when told that he looks religious, and therefor, human.

Personification is used to make ideas more clear. It is stronger than other kinds of comparisons because it brings the idea into a realm which we arguably understand better than anything else: that of our actions and feelings. Comparing a bird to a river gives us one image, but comparing a bird to, say, a happy, whistling, person gives a very precise image, and all of the emotions that would come with someone who's happy and whistling. An example from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-personification.htm decribes this effect well:

"If the sun laughs when it is high in the sky...[it is] suddenly human and therefore a person can relate to [it]. Conversely, when the sun is described in purely scientific terms it becomes remote and impersonal. It may be understood scientifically, but is much harder to 'get' emotionally. " Therefor, personification allows people to connect to inanimate objects through writing, making the writing very interesting.

"Poetry Terms." __poetry-online.org__. 7 Dec. 2008 

Ellis-Christensen, Tricia. "What is Personification?" __wiseGEEK__. 2008. 7 Dec. 2008 

"Poem - West-Running Brook by Robert Frost - Quotes and Poems dot com." __Quotes and Poems.com__. 2008. 7 Dec. 2008 

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