Stylistic device Similar to 'personification' but direct. The speaker addresses someone absent or dead, or addresses an inanimate or abstract object as if it were human. This is when the name of a character has a symbolic meaning. For example, in Dickens' "Great Expectations", Miss Havisham has a sham, or lives a life full of pretense. In Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter", Rev. Dimmesdale metaphorically fades away (dims) as the novel progresses, while Chillingworth has a cold (chilled) heart. A symbol may be an object, a person, a situation, an action, a word, or an idea that has literal meaning in the story
Dickens in America of Dickens's children and Grip the raven that Dickens and Catherine took with them to America. Miriam then boards the RMS Queen Mary 2, which like the RMS Britannia which transported Dickens, his wife Catherine and Catherine's handmaid, is a Cunard ocean liner. It is summertime. Dickens embarked on January 2. One of the first things she sees is a sign saying "Do not use the handrails when descending" Apparently that helps avoid getting diarrhea aboard the moving ship. Miriam wanders the ship and says, "It's huge. It's like a village." Dickens on the other hand complained how small the