Tag: personification

Using simile and metaphor to write effective stories

We humans are masters at storytelling. We search for patterns, meaning and similarities in everything around us. We structure our experiences in ways that help us to make sense of our world and how it works. And then we tell our ‘stories’ to our family and friends, or our online followers, in an attempt to share a little of what we’ve learned from life.

Telling memorable stories

There are certain rhetorical devices that writers can use, techniques that help them to keep a reader or listener’s attention and build their investment in the story.

One example of this is the use of personification and anthropomorphism, which I talk about further in The Use of Anthropomorphism in Fiction. In these cases, the writer imbues human characteristics either literally or figuratively in animals or inanimate objects in order to emphasise their themes or say something about their characters. When we think of something as being like a human, we inevitably feel more connected with it, because we can use our own experiences to empathise and make sense of their behaviour.

Another way that writers can achieve a similar goal is through the use of simile and metaphor, which can be used to strengthen descriptive images.

What are simile and metaphor?

Simile and metaphor both involve using figurative language to compare one thing to another, but function in slightly different ways.

When a writer uses simile, they describe an object by comparing it to something else using ‘like’ or ‘as’. Some examples would be:

Oh my luve is like a red, red rose.

Robert Burns

His smile was as stiff as a frozen fish.

Raymond Chandler

When a writer uses a metaphor, they describe something as if it were something else. For example:

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

William Shakespeare

My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.

John Green

Metaphors can also be extended to compare two things on more than one level. An example for this would be ‘Hope is a Thing with Feathers’ by Emily Dickinson, where the whole poem is an extended metaphor describing hope with bird-like features.

Metaphors are generally considered to be more impactful than similes, because they assert that the objects in question are essentially the same as each other. Similes on the other hand function more as a suggestion to us, they plant an idea in our heads but leave us to imagine the details. Take for example “My anger is a raging fire” versus “My anger is like a raging fire”. In the first, we picture a literal fire and connect it with the character’s anger, whereas in the second, we picture the features of a fire – hot, hard to control, destructive – and consider what parts link with the character’s emotion.

Both devices have their place in a story. If a writer were to spend the entire narrative just using metaphors, we’re likely to disengage, feeling that we’re being told what to think. But equally, if they only use simile, the writer risks losing their voice, relying on the reader to infer the majority of the description. Good fiction uses the right one at the right time in order to strengthen the narrative and immerse the reader in each moment.

What makes a bad metaphor or simile

Similes and metaphors don’t always work well when they are used. We might read one and just feel that it doesn’t work, doesn’t help us to better picture the image, or just that it takes us out of the story for some reason – here are a few reasons why that might happen:

It’s a cliché

We all know some clichéd similes and metaphors: dead as a doornail; fine kettle of fish; wipe the slate clean. And there are two reasons why we find them jarring in fiction. Firstly, because we know them so well, and have heard them in other contexts, we no longer imagine them figuratively, which means that they lose their impact. Secondly, often these clichéd comparisons have lost some of their meaning over time because our way of life has changed – doornails were hammered so deeply you couldn’t easily remove them; fish kettles were long saucepans that used to be common kitchen utensils; and a clean slate comes from wiping a writing slate clean in classrooms.

The objects being compared are too alike

When this happens, the comparison becomes redundant and just doesn’t add to the story. An example might be saying that bubblegum popped like a balloon – both pop in fairly similar ways, so what does the comparison add to the image?

It doesn’t fit with the tone/atmosphere

Figurative language can throw us out of a story if it evokes an image that doesn’t fit well with the scene that we’re reading. An example of this is in City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, when the main characters are in a nightclub and one is being watched by a vampire:

Around her neck was a thick silver chain, on which hung a dark red pendant the size of a baby’s fist

While the comparison might be accurate for what Clare is describing, how does the image of a baby add to the dark tone that she’s already established?

Another way that a simile or metaphor might break the atmosphere is to refer to something that wouldn’t exist in the time of the narrative. For example, referring to the speed of a bullet or the ticking of a clock in a story where those haven’t been invented yet. While mentioning them in the narrative might not technically be anachronistic, depending on the narrator, they serve to make us think about the modern world when the writer wants us immersed in the past.

What makes an effective simile or metaphor?

Being true to the narrative voice

The strongest similes and metaphors will fit well with the voice of the narrator. This would include consideration of the story’s setting, its tone, its themes and things that the narrator is likely to know. Take for example this quote by Terry Pratchett in Mort:

Ankh- Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colourful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound

All of the comparisons made are of things that might be found in a pre-industrial revolution city like Ankh-Morpork, so they fit with the narrator’s level of knowledge. They also fit with the humourous tone of the book by using examples that speak to the unrefined, crime ridden nature of the people within the city.

Another example comes from Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass:

Because Lyra now realized, if she hadn’t done so before, that all the fear in her nature was drawn to Mrs. Coulter as a compass needle drawn to the Pole

Since this book focuses on Lyra’s use of a device called an alethiometer that looks like a compass and responds to human intent, this simile fits well with Lyra’s viewpoint, using a comparison that is related to her recent experiences.

Any good metaphor or simile considers what their narrator or viewpoint character might think of when making a comparison. A good story remembers that the story is not just written for the reader but written by a narrator and if that narrator is from a certain time period or country or world then the figurative language they use should also exist within that context.

The importance of specificity

A lot of the most cliché similes and metaphors are quite general, for example, “quiet as a mouse”, “life is a journey”, “cold as ice”. While these comparisons do give some extra information, they don’t evoke a strong image or clear idea of what the writer is trying to convey. If they weren’t already well-known, they would be unlikely to stick in our minds after being read.

Effective similes and metaphors add a level of specificity. If the comparison evokes an image of a certain moment or emotion, then it’s easier for the reader to picture. Compare “quiet as a mouse in a house full of cats” or “cold as the ice on Triton” to the more well-known examples.

But we can also look to literature for examples of specificity adding more than just additional imagery:

Time has not stood still. It has washed over me, washed me away, as if I’m nothing more than a woman of sand, left by a careless child too near the water.

Margaret Atwood, A Handmaid’s Tale

He looks like right after the maul hits the steer and it no longer alive and don’t yet know that it is dead.

William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

Both of these examples describe an actual moment that the reader can imagine, thus strengthening the image that they are trying to evoke. They also weave in additional elements that speak to the emotions that the writer is trying to convey – the detail of being left by a “careless” child speaks to an idea that there may have been a way to be more careful, to defend against the waves of time. And with Faulkner, the example is of an animal caught off guard, still processing the impact of a sudden, negative change.

Remembering not to overdo it

A good writer thinks about what parts of their story are most important and would benefit from the emphasis of figurative language. Every piece of figurative language involves needing to access information about the object being compared and what we know about it, in order to understand the meaning beneath the comparison. If there are too many in a short space of time, we essentially become fatigued and lose interest. Or, if figurative language emphasises a part of the story that isn’t that important, we can also be left feeling unclear about what point the writer was trying to get across.

Deciding what works for the story

Any ‘rule’ of writing is made to be broken. However, there is a difference between just not knowing the rules and making a conscious decision not to follow them. In the same way that a skilled chef might deviate from a recipe because their taste buds suggest something different, a skilled writer can learn to subvert reader expectations and break the rules in ways that strengthen rather than weaken their story.

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Caroline Ashley

Caroline Ashley is a clinical psychologist who works for the NHS in Scotland. She loves fantasy in all forms and is fascinated by the ways in which the fantasical can speak to our everyday lives.

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CATS ARE NICE (The Use of Anthropomorphism in Fiction)

“‘I meant,’ said Ipslore bitterly, ‘what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?’
Death thought about it.
CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.”

– Sir Terry Pratchett

What is anthropomorphism?

The above quote is an example of a character interacting with an anthropomorphic personification of a natural phenomenon. In simpler terms, this is when a non-human object or animal (or concept in this case) is shown to display human traits and be capable of human behaviour. Death in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series is a sentient being, who raises a daughter, hires an apprentice and, as noted in this quote, has his own personal likes and dislikes. His existence is shown on several occasions to ease the process of dying, making death an experience that is tinged with a level of familiarity, and less scary as a result. Pratchett also uses him as a tool through which he can observe and reflect on the complexities of life and death, though the perspective of a character who technically experiences neither.

There is a slight distinction to be made between anthropomorphism and personification, two similar but distinct literary devices. Anthropomorphism involves imbuing non-human things with human traits and human behaviour, for example, the animals in Animal Farm; or Thomas the Tank Engine; or Winnie the Pooh. Personification involves giving inanimate objects or natural phenomena human-like characteristics, like saying that the sun is smiling or opportunity is knocking at the door. Personification is intended to be more figurative, while anthropomorphism is more literal.

Death in the Discworld is technically an anthropomorphism, although he is used by other characters as a personification, so he is really a bit of both.

Why do we anthropomorphise?

There have been many theories about the reasons for anthropomorphism throughout history. David Hume, a philosopher and scientist with an interest in the origins of religious beliefs, argued that anthropomorphism was an attempt to rationalise an unfamiliar world using the model that humans were most knowledgeable about, namely the model of humans themselves. But then, humans also anthropomorphise animals and objects that they are familiar with, like laughing dogs and spoons that run off with dishes.

Sigmund Freud, the famous psychoanalyst, saw it as an attempt to make a hostile and threatening world into something familiar and thus less threatening.  But humans frequently attempt to personify sounds and images into something scary, like thinking the creak of a floorboard is a burgler.

The true answer is probably a mix of both. Humans look for patterns and stories in the world. Our brains are predisposed to see connections and to turn disparate parts into wholes. In doing so, we rationalise something unknown and make it familiar – even if we believe it’s something dangerous, at least it’s a danger that we can categorise.

Remember Heidel and Simmel’s moving shapes from my post about why we tell stories? These were an example of anthropomorphism, where basic shapes were conferred human intention and behaviour by their observers with the purpose of making sense of the movements they were seeing. And there is a survival benefit in being predisposed to see agency in the world around us – there is less of a cost to mistakenly thinking that a moving object is alive, than there is in ignoring a living creature that’s a potential threat.

We can find examples of anthropomorphism in stories across human history. Native Americans and Australian Aboriginals used animals to tell stories about the creation of the world and teach moral lessons about society. Religions across the world historically often described anthropomorphised gods – representations of natural phenomenon like the sun, love or war, who married, grew jealous and had children, just like humans.

As far as the human brain is concerned, we are surrounded by creatures who are just like us, even when they are not.

The use of anthropomorphism in literature

Writers through the ages have often used anthropomorphism within their stories. This device takes advantage of humans’ natural propensity to confer human-like traits on others. The purpose of this device is dependent on the story being told.

Take Animal Farm by George Orwell, for example. This book is a satirical allegory for Russia’s communist revolution, with the animal’s representing different groups or people from Russian history. But yet, the story is removed enough from the reality that it critiques to have lasted the test of time, becoming like a fairy tale, where the underlying message remains relevant regardless of current history.

People read the story without their real world preconceptions being triggered, meaning that the story itself has room to challenge the reader to think about the rights and wrongs of these animals’ decisions and behaviour. The story presents these questions to the reader in far more general terms than a story about people in Russia would have done and thus makes the reader consider their general view on similar situations, rather than their opinion on Russia specifically.

Another powerful example of the use of anthropomorphism is Watership Down by Richard Adams. In this example, the anthropomorphism serves a slightly different purpose. The rabbits in the story have a society much like a human one, with their own culture, mythology and language. The characters exist in a world fraught with danger, with humans being one of the biggest. Here, Adams takes advantage of our preconceptions about rabbits – they’re our pets, they’re cute little animals that we see bounding across the grass. We start off with an image of a vulnerable creature, which serves to further emphasise the risks when the characters are threatened, as well as increasing our empathy for their plight.

This story also challenges the reader by placing them in the position of the enemy against a very humanised group of animals – thus indirectly raising questions around how we treat and understand animals but also how we might treat other humans whose culture is significantly different from our own. If those questions had been posed through the lens of refugees coming to Britain, facing threats from the government or challenges from the locals, I would argue that the story would have lost an element of the emotional resonance and timelessness which has sustained this book’s popularity.

Anthropomorphism for children

The talking animals in children’s stories serve a similar purpose to those in adult literature. They turn the narrative into something that exists outside of known human culture but also tells our children something about how the world works. Anthropomorphism helps children to absorb the underlying message of the story by creating a level of emotional distance from the narrative, allowing for a staged introduction into potential real-life challenges.

Take Little Red Riding Hood. The wolf eats the girl’s grandmother and could have killed her. He’s defeated by the woodsman in the end, but he’s still a dangerous threat to the little girl. Imagine if that wolf was a human – a man who had broken into Grandmother’s house and killed her, then lain in wait to pounce on Little Red. Young children need to be aware there are dangers in the world but we also don’t want them suspicious of every adult they meet. The wolf is a substitute for the real risk, a gentle warning until children are old enough to understand the complexities of human behaviour.

Another, less extreme example of this, is the story of the Ugly Duckling. The poor duckling is rejected by the ducks and made fun of by other animals, until he sheds his downy fur, and is welcomed by a flock of swans come spring. When children read this story, they feel sad for the duckling and learn a bit about acceptance along the way. But what parent would want to read them the story of the Ugly Child – a boy who’s adoptive mother didn’t love him, whose peers made fun of him, and who didn’t really find somewhere to belong until he grew up? The message is the same, but the distance is gone and it starts to feel like something that could happen in the home or in the playground, rather than a distant allegory.

Anthropomorphism done well

The examples that I’ve given from literature mostly use a fully anthropomorphised setting – where everyone is an anthropomorphic animal. But, much as with Terry Pratchett’s Death, this device can be used in smaller ways to achieve an effect within a larger story, such as Aslan the lion from Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia; or Michael Bond’s Paddington Bear; or  the range of fantastical characters in Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

Anthropomorphism works best when the form of the character is used with purpose. All humans are predisposed to anthropomorphise, which means that we come with a range of preconceptions that can be taken advantage of. Lions are strong predators but also sociable felines; rabbits are cute pets to some and prolific rodents to others. Anthropomorphism that works well in literature often uses these preconceptions to strengthen the story’s character, or does the opposite by subverting expectations.

As well, it’s important to consider why a story is using anthropomorphism. What is it about the theme of the story that means an anthropomorphic character is better than a human? Does the reader need emotional distance to be able to reflect on the underlying meaning of the story, like with The Ugly Duckling? Does the character serve as a way of changing the readers view of an abstract concept, like Death? The purpose doesn’t necessarily need to be obvious to the reader, but the story will be stronger and more meaningful if the writer has considered what it is.

When used well, anthropomorphism can be an effective literary device that serves to strengthen the symbolism and themes within a story. It can turn a narrative into a timeless classic that speaks to the human condition in a manner that will remain relevant across generations.

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Caroline Ashley is a clinical psychologist who works for the NHS in Scotland. She loves of fantasy in all forms and is fascinated by the ways in which the fantasical can speak to our everyday lives.