Which poetic device is used in the following line? The river swallowed the town whole. A personification B alliteration C onomatopoeia D simile

English · College · Tue Nov 03 2020

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The figure of speech that was used in the sentence “The river swallowed the town whole.” is A. Personification.

Personification means giving human like abilities or actions to a non-living organism. To support  this claim, a river is not a living organism, hence it is a body of water, and by the term swallowed, it means getting devoured or consumed by the river, and that ability only applies to a living organism as it swallow its food. Personification gives elaboration to a certain event by inserting abilities to a situational phenomenon. Basically if we look into the deeper meaning of the context, it must have mean that the river overflooded the town, due to an increase in water level, or a sudden storm that causes a storm surge that destroys/devour the town.

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