A final technique that helps awaken feelings, especially when the subject is abstract, is personification. Personification involves treating inanimate subjects, such as ideas or institutions, as though they had human form or feeling. In the late spring of 1989, Chinese students demonstrating for freedom marched in Tiananmen Square carrying a statue they called the “Goddess of Liberty.” They were borrowing a personification that has long been used in the Western world: the representation of liberty as a woman. When those students then had to confront tanks, and their oppressors destroyed the symbol of liberty, it was easy for many, living thousands of miles away in another culture, to feel angry and to identify with their cause. Personification makes it easier to arouse feelings about people and values that might otherwise seem distant.
05 Mar
