What is Personification and Why is it Useful in Screenwriting?

Personification is a popular literary device that uses figurative language and can be a powerful tool in creating memorable characters and settings. However, it is not just used in poems and novels. It can be used by screenwriters and filmmakers to bring their stories to life – literally!

In this article, we’ll define personification, explore why writers and screenwriters choose to use it in their work, and how it can be effective in storytelling.

What is Personification?

Personification is the attribution of human characteristics to something non-human. This could be an animal, an inanimate object, a setting or even a concept. These characteristics can be any emotions, actions, or behaviors that help to bring something to life. 

This could be, for instance, a simple description of the wind howling to the ocean in Moana, which has human-like interactions and awareness. Something ambient or abstract is given recognizable, tangible qualities to help us relate to it.

However, personification can also be the representation of an abstract quality or concept in human form. For example, the seven deadly sins personified may be characters who represent these traits either metaphorically or literally. 

This is evidently on display in Pixar’s Inside Out, for example. In the film, each emotion has its own ‘human’ form. Each character reflects the emotion they’re intended to represent. For better or worse, they are defined by this emotion. That is until they seek to overcome these definitions and reach a more complex range of emotions. This is where the narrative finds its hook.

Anthropomorphism

A more literal type of personification is anthropomorphism. While still giving human characteristics to an animal or object, anthropomorphism is when these things are literally capable of human behaviour.

This difference between types of personification is often seen between literature and films.

• In a piece of writing, an author may describe an engine as angry. But this is only metaphorical as the engine is not actually capable of emotions. 
• Contrastingly, we often see anthropomorphism in cinema, most notably in children’s films. Here, recognizable human characteristics are utilized to bring animals or inanimate objects to life.

Mushu in Mulan, Olaf in Frozen, and even Casita in Encanto have all been anthropomorphised. They have the self-awareness, emotions, and ability to speak that humans do. And of course, Pixar has a habit of giving human characteristics to otherwise inanimate objects or animals, from Cars and Toy Story to A Bug’s Life and Finding Nemo.