Personification: Reference to abstractions or inanimate objects as though they had human qualities or abilities. The English term for prosopopeia (pro-so-po-pe’-i-a) or ethopoeia (e-tho-po’-ia): the description and portrayal of a character (natural propensities, manners and affections, etc.).
It was just a normal Sunday. It was 9.30 in the morning. I was watching “Lily Gets Planted” on my laptop. It was about a feisty young farm girl who solves the murder of her cousin, Ep. Corny, the murderer, finds out and needs to get rid of Lily. He makes her dig a hole under the family tractor. He intends to “plant” Lily under the tractor and get away. He plants her. Lily is starting to suffocate when her two pet ground hogs, Slow and Moe, sniff her out and dig her out. Lily calls the police and they capture Corny trying to make his getaway on a stolen lawn tractor.
I love “Lily Gets Planted.” I have watched it every Sunday for the past three months. The woodchucks coming to the rescue bring tears to my eyes as the dirt flies and the clock is ticking on Lily’s oxygen supply. When her head pops out of the ground it’s like she is reborn and will go back to her joyful life on the farm. I must confess, I’ve grown quite fond of her and have written her several love letters. If she responds, I am going to ask her to marry me. I would love to live with her and her two groundhogs. But now, I have bigger thing to worry about.
Last week, I referred to my car as a “thief” because of all the money I spend keeping it on the road. As soon as I called it a thief, it disappeared and left a guy in a balaclava standing there. He ran away and my car rematerialized. Yesterday, I hit my thumb with a hammer and yelled “You prick!” and my hammer turned into a penis in my hand. Then, in a few minutes everything went back to normal—my hammer was a hammer again. Then, wracking my brain, I remembered my public speaking class from college—what I had been doing was making personifications—giving human attributes to things—thief and prick to my car and my hammer. So, I stopped with the personifications. I didn’t know what else to do. Then, in one last act of desperation, I went to Santa Barbara to talk to my old rhetoric professor at UCSB—she was almost 78. I told her what had been going on. She nodded her head, looked in my eyes, and grabbed my arms and quietly said “John, you are fu*king crazy.” I could live with that. Most of my family is crazy and takes some kind of medication to keep them minimally functional. So, instead of trying to do away with it my avoiding personifications, I gave them free rein and learned to revel in the temporary transformations they induced.
Now, I could go back to obsessing over Lily. I baked some special groundhog treats and mailed them to her. I am awaiting her reply like a dog without a bone.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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