Metaphor vs. Personification: Differences Between the Terms

A metaphor (from the Greek “metaphorá”) is a figure of speech that directly compares one thing to another for rhetorical effect. While the most common metaphors use the structure “X is Y,” the term “metaphor” itself is broad; you can sometimes use it to include other literary terms, like similes.

Personification is a literary device that uses the non-literal use of language to convey concepts in a relatable way. Writers use personification to give human characteristics, such as emotions and behaviors, to non-human things, animals, and ideas. The statement “the story jumped off the page” is a good example of personification.

Metaphor and personification can be of great use in your writing, but they are literary devices that serve different purposes. Consider the different ways metaphors and personification differ from one another:

• Attributes: Metaphors and personification both use comparison, but personification applies human qualities to animals and non-living things. In Aesop’s fable of The North Wind and the Sun, the wind and the sun possess human traits and compete to see who could make a traveler remove his coat fastest. A metaphor, on the other hand, can compare a person, place, or thing to another person, place, or thing as in, “her anger was a solar flare, suddenly and potentially devastating.”
• Description: Writers can use metaphors and personifications to describe settings in creative writing but in varying ways. A metaphor makes a rhetorical comparison between two unlike things, like “The forest was a book of secrets.” A writer can also use personification to create a narrative setting, such as “A thick blanket of fog lay over the town.”
• Usage: Metaphors and personification are both common figures of speech. Metaphors are more likely to be a cliché. Overused metaphors include the expressions “Love is a battlefield” and “That is the icing on the cake.” At the same time, metaphors are especially useful for describing an abstract idea, and since you can compare two unrelated things in a variety of ways, this literary device lends itself to many creative iterations. Personification, which gives human qualities to inanimate objects, has a more limited usage since you will always give an item human characteristics.

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