Personification

Personification is a technique by which the poet ascribes human qualities to non-human objects or ideas. Malroux uses personification throughout the poem to describe what the speaker sees. In the second section of the poem, the sun is personified as it shows its "face-paints" like a person at a carnival and "bedecks the buildings" as if dressing the buildings for lively events. The sun is further personified in the next stanza, as it "smoothes away the night," as if it were a person smoothing out a piece of cloth. In the third section, both the windows opening "their eyelids" and the grass, which "sleeps profoundly," are given the qualities of a person in the morning, awakening or continuing to sleep. In line 18 of that stanza, the earth is ascribed the characteristics of a mother. In the final section, Malroux personifies the trees as priestly beings, wearing priestly garments...