Personification In The Happylife Home

The personification of the Happylife Home sparks life into the machinery and gives it the purpose of pleasing the humans. A display of compassion and warmth create the welcoming atmosphere every home should have. In contrast with the actual people living here, "this house which clothed and fed and rocked them to sleep and played and sang and was good to them" (p1) appeared to be more humane. The Hadleys were a troubled family. Adults who abandoned the responsibilities of being parents became irrelevant to the lives of their own children. The lack of compassion, kindness, love, and apologies for actions widens the gap in familial bond. In place of George and Lydia, the house becomes the "mother . . . and nursemaid" (p3) that develops an unbreakable bond with the children. Personification used in the earlier parts of this story enables the reader to realize that technology is more human and more loved than the parents. It's the lively portrayal of the technology that allows it to become the world of the children. The nursery provides a

Before George Hadley "killed the nursery," he was nervous as if it were actually a real living thing with feelings. With this sudden internal conflict, he states "I don't imagine the room will like being turned off" (p8) and "I wonder if it hates me for wanting to switch it off" (p8). An unreasonable worry towards nonexistent feelings of the nursery uncovers a more realistic worry stemming from how the children might react to the room's sudden end. When the children throw a tantrum, Peter pleads "as if he was talking to the house, the nursery" (p9) for his father to stop. At this point, the house and everything in it resembled humanity enough that the deactivation of the machinery resulted in a "house . . . full of dead bodies" (p9). The dark personification creates a connection between the emotions of the technology being tainted by the death thoughts of the