Choose the correct figure of speech used in the following lines:
O mischief, thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Personification
Personification means giving human qualities or actions to an idea, an animal or an object. The lines are spoken by Romeo in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (Act 5, Scene 1). Mischief (the thought of doing harm) is pictured as a person who moves swiftly and enters the thoughts of desperate men. Romeo also speaks to mischief directly ("O mischief"), which is an apostrophe, but that device is not among the options.
Example: Opportunity knocked at his door.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: Assonance — Incorrect. Assonance is the repetition of the same vowel sound in words close together; the lines are not built on a repeated vowel.
Example: The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
Option 2: Metaphor — Incorrect. A metaphor calls one thing another to show a likeness, without "like" or "as"; mischief is not called something else here, it is given human actions.
Example: Time is a thief.
Option 4: Metonymy — Incorrect. Metonymy uses the name of a closely connected thing in place of the thing meant ("the crown" for the king); no such substitution is made here.
Example: The pen is mightier than the sword.
Contrast: personification makes a thing act like a person; a metaphor says that one thing is another.