Pathetic Fallacy
Pathetic Fallacy: Attributing human emotions to nature or the weather so the setting mirrors a character's feelings.
Pathetic fallacy turns the setting into an emotional soundtrack: the storm rages because the character does, and the reader absorbs the feeling without being told it.
Pathetic Fallacy examples
"Lear rages on the heath while the storm rages with him."
— King Lear, Shakespeare
"The wild moorland weather of Wuthering Heights keeps pace with its characters' tempers."
— Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
"The sky had been weeping all morning, which suited everyone at the graveside."
— original example
"The critic John Ruskin coined the term in Modern Painters, objecting to poets who made 'the cruel, crawling foam' feel cruelty."
— Modern Painters, John Ruskin
Spot the Pathetic Fallacy
Score: 0/0Attributing human emotions to nature or the weather so the setting mirrors a character's feelings.
"Lear rages on the heath while the storm rages with him."
Which work is this from?
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Pathetic Fallacy: common questions
What is pathetic fallacy in literature?
Attributing human emotions to nature or the weather so the setting mirrors a character's feelings. Pathetic fallacy turns the setting into an emotional soundtrack: the storm rages because the character does, and the reader absorbs the feeling without being told it.
What is an example of pathetic fallacy?
A classic example is "Lear rages on the heath while the storm rages with him." (King Lear, Shakespeare).
Is pathetic fallacy the same as personification?
It is a specific kind of personification: nature or weather given human feeling, and used as a mirror for a character's emotional state. All pathetic fallacy is personification; most personification is not pathetic fallacy.
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