AP English Literature and Composition

## Learning Outcomes

- Distinguish clearly between simile, metaphor, and personification
- Explain how simile and personification function in prose fiction, not just what they are
- Analyse how figurative language shapes tone, setting, characterization, and theme
- Build stronger AP Lit commentary using a device-to-effect-to-meaning method
- Recognise common mistakes in multiple-choice and FRQ 2 prose analysis
- Structure a defensible prose analysis claim about figurative language

## AP English Literature and Composition Syllabus

For the AP English Literature and Composition, you are expected to understand how figurative language works in prose fiction, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know that **simile** is an explicit comparison using words such as _like_ or _as_
- Identify **personification** as the giving of human qualities, actions, or emotions to something nonhuman or abstract
- Explain the difference between simile and metaphor in prose analysis
- Understand how simile and personification can develop tone, mood, setting, characterization, and theme
- Recognise that FRQ 2 rewards interpretation supported by evidence and commentary, not device-spotting
- Analyse the function of figurative language in prose passages, including how it reflects narrative perspective
- Prepare for multiple-choice questions that ask about the purpose or effect of a word, phrase, or image in context

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. What is the difference between a simile and a metaphor?
2. How can personification make a prose setting feel threatening rather than friendly?
3. Why is “the author uses simile to make the description vivid” too weak for AP Lit commentary?
4. How can a simile reveal a narrator’s or character’s point of view?
5. What kind of claim about figurative language would fit FRQ 2 better: a list of devices or an argument about effect?

## Introduction

In AP Literature, prose passages should be read as carefully as poems. That matters especially with **simile** and **personification**, because these devices often do much more than decorate description. In short fiction, a single comparison can reveal a character’s fear, expose a narrator’s bias, turn a setting into a force, or sharpen a passage’s tone.

Students often identify the device correctly but stop too soon. On the exam, that earns little. The real task is to explain **how** the figurative language works and **why** it matters to the passage as a whole. That is the difference between naming a feature and building literary analysis.

> **Key Term: figurative language**
> Language that goes beyond literal meaning in order to create comparison, emphasis, or layered interpretation.

### Simile, metaphor, and personification: what students must separate

The first step is precision. AP readers expect accurate literary vocabulary, but they care even more about whether you use the term to support interpretation.

> **Key Term: simile**
> A figure of speech that compares one thing to another using an explicit marker such as _like_ or _as_.
>
> **Key Term: metaphor**
> A direct comparison in which one thing is described as another without using _like_ or _as_.
>
> **Key Term: personification**
> A figure of speech that gives human traits, actions, or emotions to something nonhuman or abstract.

A quick distinction:

- **Simile:** “She moved through the room _like_ a ghost.”
- **Metaphor:** “She _was_ a ghost in that room.”
- **Personification:** “The room watched her in silence.”

These may seem close, but their effects differ.

A **simile** invites readers to compare two unlike things and think about the exact point of resemblance. If a character clutches a briefcase “like a shield,” the point is not merely shape. The image suggests defense, fear, and conflict. The comparison reveals the character’s state of mind.

A **metaphor** is often more forceful because it collapses the gap between the two things. “He was a shield” sounds stronger and less tentative than “like a shield.”

**Personification** works differently. It does not mainly compare two things. Instead, it animates the nonhuman. A wind that “worried at the shutters” feels restless, intrusive, almost intentional. That changes the setting from background into active pressure.

Students sometimes misread personification as any vivid image. That is too broad. “The red wall glowed in sunset” is imagery, but not necessarily personification. “The wall glared at him” is personification because the wall receives a human action.

Another common mistake is assuming every _like_ or _as_ matters equally. Not every simile is central. On AP Lit, the issue is significance. Ask: does the comparison sharpen tone, reveal perspective, or develop a larger meaning?

> **Test Tip:** On multiple-choice questions, do not stop at identifying a device. If an answer choice only names “simile” or “personification” without explaining function, it is often incomplete.

### How simile works in prose fiction

Simile in prose usually does one of four things: clarifies description, reveals perspective, develops characterization, or sharpens tone. The strongest analysis often shows more than one function at once.

Start with the basic question: **what is being compared to what?** Then move to the harder question: **why this comparison and not another?**

Imagine the sentence: “She moved through the crowded hallway like a ghost at noon.”

A weak comment would be: “This is a simile that makes the description vivid.”

A stronger comment would be: “The simile compares the character to ‘a ghost,’ presenting her as socially invisible and emotionally detached; the odd phrase ‘at noon’ adds exposure rather than mystery, suggesting that her isolation happens in plain sight.”

That second reading works because it explains the particular logic of the comparison. A ghost suggests absence, separation, and intangibility. “At noon” removes the usual darkness associated with ghosts, so the effect is not gothic fear but public alienation. The simile contributes directly to characterization and tone.

Similes can also reveal the **mind** doing the perceiving. In prose, many descriptions are filtered through a narrator or focal character. If a lake is “smooth as polished glass,” the comparison may suggest calm, order, or fragility. If the same lake is “flat as a dead eye,” the tone becomes bleak and ominous. The object is the same; the perspective changes.

This is one reason AP prompts so often connect imagery with point of view. A simile is rarely neutral. It tells you how the speaker or narrator interprets the world.

Consider a second example: “Her laughter rang out like breaking ice.”

What does that do?

- It is not warm or carefree.
- It is sharp, brittle, and sudden.
- It may suggest beauty with danger.
- It can imply emotional strain beneath outward charm.

A good AP claim might be: the author uses the simile to make the laughter sound unstable, which hints that the social ease of the scene is only surface-deep.

That is stronger than calling the image “vivid” because it names a precise effect and links it to a larger reading.

> **Key Term: tone**
> The attitude conveyed by the narrator or speaker toward the subject, character, or situation.

Similes often shape tone through connotation. A comparison to feathers, velvet, glass, rust, bones, or machinery carries emotional force beyond plain visual resemblance. Students miss marks when they describe only what the image looks like and ignore what it feels like.

A useful method:

1. Identify the two things compared.
2. List the qualities of the second thing.
3. Decide which of those qualities matter most in context.
4. Link those qualities to characterization, tone, or theme.

For example, if a character “waited like a defendant outside the office,” the comparison suggests fear, judgment, and vulnerability. That does more than describe posture. It frames the whole situation as accusation.

### How personification shapes setting, mood, and inner life

Personification is especially powerful in prose because fiction often depends on atmosphere. When an author gives human agency to weather, houses, streets, dawn, or silence, the setting stops being passive. It begins to feel like a participant in the scene.

Take: “Morning crept reluctantly into the room.”

That personification does several things at once:

- “Crept” slows the pace.
- “Reluctantly” gives morning an emotional quality.
- The room feels heavy, tired, resistant to renewal.

The result is a melancholy mood. It may also reflect the emotional condition of the character inside that room. This is where students should think beyond weather or scenery.

> **Key Term: setting**
> The time, place, and social or physical environment in which a literary work occurs.

In prose fiction, personification often connects setting to psychology. A nervous character may feel the city “watching.” A lonely character may feel the house “sighing.” A guilty character may notice the wind “accusing” the windows. Whether the setting is literally alive is not the point. The language shows how human consciousness projects meaning onto the world.

That is why personification does not always create comfort. Students often treat it as friendly or whimsical. On AP Lit, it can also create menace, irony, judgment, claustrophobia, or grief.

Compare these effects:

- “The old house sighed as the boards settled.”  
  This can suggest age, burden, or memory.

- “The city watched him closely.”  
  This creates surveillance and unease.

- “The wind worried at the shutters.”  
  This gives nature persistence and pressure.

- “The sun reached gently across the floor.”  
  This softens the scene and may suggest comfort.

Same device, very different tonal results.

A useful related term is **pathetic fallacy**, where nature seems to reflect human feeling. You do not need to force this label in every essay, but the concept helps. If storm clouds “gather” as a quarrel deepens, or dusk “swallows” a scene as hope fades, the environment mirrors emotional action.

Still, be careful. Personification is not only emotional mirroring. Sometimes it builds theme. A story about human powerlessness may personify machines, cities, or institutions to make them seem dominant. A passage about memory may personify old objects so the past feels half-alive.

> **Test Tip:** If a setting is personified, ask whether the language reflects a character’s perception, the narrator’s attitude, or the story’s wider theme. The best answer may involve more than one layer.

### From device spotting to AP commentary

The exam does not reward a checklist of terms. It rewards argument. That is especially true on **FRQ 2**, the prose fiction analysis essay.

> **Key Term: line of reasoning**
> The logical progression of an argument showing how specific evidence supports a central interpretation.

A weak body sentence looks like this:

- “The author uses simile and personification in the passage.”

That earns almost nothing by itself.

A stronger version looks like this:

- “By comparing the hallway to a tunnel and personifying the walls as ‘listening,’ the narrator turns an ordinary space into one of pressure and scrutiny, which deepens the protagonist’s anxiety.”

Notice the movement:

- evidence
- technique
- effect
- meaning

That is the pattern you want again and again.

You can build commentary with these sentence frames:

- “The simile compares **_ to _**, emphasizing…”
- “This comparison suggests not just appearance but…”
- “By personifying **_ as _**, the narrator makes the setting feel…”
- “Because this description is filtered through \_\_\_’s perspective, the figurative language reveals…”
- “The image contributes to a tone of \_\_\_, which supports the passage’s larger concern with…”

Here is a worked example using an invented prose sentence:

“Rain tapped impatiently at the window while Clara sat with the unopened letter.”

Possible commentary:

The personification of the rain as “impatient” gives the outside world a pressing, almost accusatory force. Because Clara still refuses to open the letter, the weather seems to act out the urgency she resists. The image therefore does more than set the scene; it externalises Clara’s tension and creates a mood of nervous delay.

That is AP-style analysis because it connects description to inner conflict.

Here is another:

“He held the key like a verdict.”

Commentary:

The simile compares the key to “a verdict,” shifting it from an ordinary object to a sign of judgment and consequence. Rather than suggesting simple access, the image implies that opening the door will confirm something final. This sharpens suspense and reveals that the character approaches the moment with dread, not curiosity.

Again, the key move is specificity. Avoid vague phrases such as “makes it more vivid” unless you immediately explain **how** and **to what end**.

### How to use this in FRQ 2 and multiple-choice

For FRQ 2, your thesis should make an argument about effect, not announce devices. Compare these:

Weak:

- “The author uses simile and personification in the passage.”

Stronger:

- “The author’s similes and personified setting turn the environment into a reflection of the protagonist’s unease, making the passage less about physical travel than about psychological exposure.”

The stronger thesis gives you a line of reasoning. Now every paragraph can show how figurative language builds unease, exposure, and psychological meaning.

A good prose analysis paragraph usually follows this shape:

1. Make a claim about function.
2. Quote or paraphrase a specific image.
3. Name the technique if useful.
4. Explain the effect in context.
5. Link back to the thesis.

For multiple-choice, expect questions asking about the **function** of a phrase or image. Eliminate answers that are:

- too general
- only definitional
- true in isolation but not in context
- emotionally mismatched to the tone of the passage

If a personification makes a house “groan,” the best answer is not merely “the author makes the house seem alive.” That may be true, but incomplete. A better answer would mention age, burden, unease, or decay if the context supports it.

Likewise, if a simile compares a character to a child, ask what exact feature matters: innocence, helplessness, impulsiveness, dependence, or vulnerability? AP questions often hinge on that precision.

The same rule applies in essays: literary terms help only when they sharpen interpretation.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- Simile is an explicit comparison using words such as _like_ or _as_
- Metaphor is a direct comparison without those markers
- Personification gives human traits, actions, or emotions to nonhuman things or abstractions
- In prose fiction, simile often develops characterization, tone, perspective, or setting
- In prose fiction, personification often makes setting feel active and meaningful
- Figurative language should be analysed for function, not merely identified
- Strong AP commentary follows a device to effect to meaning structure
- A simile often reveals the narrator’s or character’s way of seeing the world
- Personification can create menace, pressure, intimacy, irony, or comfort depending on context
- FRQ 2 rewards evidence and commentary, not device-spotting
- Multiple-choice questions often ask about the purpose or effect of figurative language in context
- A strong thesis about prose figurative language makes an argument about meaning, not a list of techniques

## Key Terms and Concepts

- figurative language
- simile
- metaphor
- personification
- tone
- setting
- line of reasoning


Short Fiction III - Simile and personification in prose