MY NOVEMBER GUEST
My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.
"My sorrow, when she's here with me". Here the poet has addressed sorrow as "she". Choose the correct figure of speech for "she":
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Personification
Personification:
- Personification gives human qualities, actions or feelings to an idea, an animal or a thing.
- This poem: the feeling of sorrow is called "she" and acts like a woman: she thinks, loves, walks the lane, talks, is glad, and wears a grey dress. An emotion has been turned into a person, the poet's "November Guest".
Example: The wind whispered through the tall trees.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: Simile — Incorrect. A simile compares two things using "like" or "as" (brave as a lion). Calling sorrow "she" is not a comparison of this kind.
Option 2: Metaphor — Incorrect. A metaphor says one thing is another (life is a journey). Here an idea is not equated with another thing; it is given the actions of a person, which is personification.
Option 4: Hyperbole — Incorrect. Hyperbole is deliberate exaggeration for effect (I have told you a million times). Nothing is exaggerated in "she".
Contrast: personification gives an idea or a thing human actions (Sorrow walks the lane); a metaphor says that one thing is another (life is a journey).