390. Personification is the technique wherein a non-human character is given human thoughts, feelings, and dialogue. Illustrate how this technique is used in your favourite novel or short story. 6 One of my favourite personifications in literature is the personification of death in “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak. In this novel, Death is the one who tells the story and is also a character in the story, which begins by Death presenting himself to the reader. This technique creates a really strong bond between the book and the reader, since the narrator addresses directly to the reader. It is also a way of captivating the reader, who, by being directly addressed to, feels like he has his own place in the story and gets curious about what that …show more content…
In the classic era, death had a rather god-like power and was above us all. Zusak, however, really humanizes death by giving her the most human of feelings and experiences, such as compassion, pity, empathy. More so, Death plays a critical role in Liesel’s story and a strong bond is created between the two. The last sentence of the novel shows exactly what kind of personification of death Zusak has created: “Even Death has a heart.” The Book Thief is an example of how successful a personification of such a powerful entity that generates fear among all living things can be. Something like the Holocaust can only be described by someone who has seen every face of every victim, has heard every story of every survivor and has felt every last grasp of air of every person who died in that massacre. When I first saw this book, I was instantly captivated by the idea of Death narrating the story, and I believe that such an idea, when it is developed and built the right way, is what sets the difference between good novels and brilliant …show more content…
Today, unrequited love is a theme found in many works of art and has gained a lot of popularity, one of the factors of its growing popularity being the well-known “friendzone” term, first used in the “Friends” TV show. Unrequited love has deeper meanings than its popularized synonym, but the works of art made due to this media frenzy are to be taken into account, since there are some that really go beyond a media frenzy. One of the more recent works of literature that contain this theme is the Harry Potter series. Severus Snape has strong feelings for Lily Evans, his neighbour who becomes his childhood best friend. The fact that they are both wizards in a world where magic has to be hidden brings them together. Snape’s feelings prove to be unhealthy ever since the beginning of these two friends’ story, when Snape hurts Lily’s sister, Petunia, because she was mean to Lily. This episode is one of the many that show how Snape is incapable of expressing his feelings in an orthodox or even understandable way. As a teenager, after being bullied by Lily’s new friends, Severus insults her only because he finds it awfully difficult to trust people, even old friends like Lily. His trust issues and social awkwardness are some of the factors that cause the separation between him and