Personification is a literary device in which the author attributes human characteristics and features to inanimate objects, ideas, or animals. Personification allows the reader to connect and identify with nonhuman or inanimate objects, which offers a better image of what is happening throughout the text. Edgar Allan Poe personifies the old man's eye throughout the short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" by referring to it as the "Evil Eye." Poe gives the eye the human attribute of being evil, which evokes the terrible, wicked emotions that the narrator feels toward the old man's eye.
Poe also personifies the "world" by writing, "Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept" (3). The world cannot literally sleep, but this gives the reader the feeling of a calm, quiet night. By personifying the night, the reader has a better understanding of the atmosphere of the night that the narrator is describing.
Poe once again utilizes personification by writing,
All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim (5).
Death is given human attributes and referred to by the personal pronoun "him." Personifying death signifies an ominous image of a malevolent criminal who stalks his victims before taking their lives.
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