The Lady in the Looking Glass

Personification is used to grant nonhuman subjects with humanlike characteristics, and is written in the form of a metaphor. As explored in the theme of Perception Versus Reality, the majority of the narrator’s speculation about Isabella is extrapolated from her material belongings. These furnishings and décor are described with humanlike qualities, to make this extrapolation credible as well as to add value to their existence. The narrator refers to themselves as a “naturalist” watching the “shyest of creatures” (2)—creatures being the furnishings in the drawing room. The country room is “quiet” and the bookcases are “sunken.” They are called “nocturnal creatures” because they only come into view when no one is watching, and they come “pirouetting across the floor, stepping delicately with high-lifted feet and spread tails and pecking as if they had been cranes or flocks of elegant flamingoes whose pink was faded, or peacocks whose trains were veiled with silver” (2). Here, the narrator imagines the nonhuman furniture in Isabella’s drawing room taking the form of exotic creatures, both in characteristics and action, deepening the impression of life. The narrator also muses that the furniture “seemed as if they knew more about her than we” (4).