Personification In The Clocks Poem

While the lover foolishly believes that his love can outlast time, the clocks scorn the lover, knowing that time will eventually conquer all.
In the poem, the use of personification builds the two different attitudes of the clocks and the lover. When Auden writes of the lover, the personification adds joyful and strong emotion to the conversation the lovers are having. The lover says “the river jumps over the mountain / And the salmon sing in the street,”which personifies the river and the salmon. The comparison between the river and a person gives their love an effortless feeling. Rivers cannot move on their own, they rely on gravity to move the water through them, so in order to jump they must defy gravity. In the absence of gravity, jumping …show more content…
In their opinion, nothing can last forever, eventually time will always conquer all. There is nothing that can overcome time, not even love that allows fish to sing or rivers to leap. The personification that Auden creates in the clocks speech builds a condescending attitude. The stanzas in which the clocks are present are full of personification, even the clocks themselves are personified, as well as time. Time is like a god, he is the greatest power there is, and the clocks are his messengers. When the clocks say “O let not Time deceive you, / You cannot conquer time”, Auden is personifying time. By capitalizing the word “Time”, he gives time a human presence. When the clocks speak of time, they talk as if Time was a human, ruling over everything, as their warning to the lovers proves, “Time will have his fancy / To-morrow or to-day”. Time will always end up winning, no matter what. The personified clocks mischievously watch and warn the lovers that they have no chance at keeping their love alive forever. This personification of both time and the clocks builds the clocks attitude that time will eventually wear down everything. Because the clocks can speak and have personalities, as well as time, the messages that they give have more meaning and emphasis to the idea that a god-like person will overpower all others. The clocks act as messengers for the god, warning the foolish …show more content…
In the clocks speech, hyperbole and metaphors are also used, but they create an opposing attitude. For example, when Auden writes “A crack in the teacup opens / A lane to the land of the dead”, he is using a metaphor and hyperbole to explain his point. The pressure of time caused the once beautiful teacup to fracture and break. The crack does not literally open a road that leads to the land of the dead, but it reveals that time will cause pain and death. The clocks could be referring to the lives of the lovers, warning them that they will eventually die. It also applies to the passionate feelings the lover has. In their speech, the clocks are attempting to warn the lover that his love will not last forever. The quote could be a warning for the lover, telling him that his love cannot conquer time. His love will eventually dry up and the thing that was holding it together will break and the love will end. Another example hyperbole is “The glacier knocks in the cupboard, / The desert sighs in the bed”. This exaggeration also creates strong imagery, interesting images of large glaciers knocking inside a cupboard or sandy deserts in beds adds to the clocks attitude. When Auden writes of the glacier in the cupboard, he is exaggerating the emptiness that time created. The glacier in the cupboard is hyperbolizing the lack of love that the lovers will eventually have for eachother. Time will empty everything from the