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
Miss Pross Charles Darnay is arrested in Paris as an aristocrat and an emigrant. When Madame Therese Defarge comes to the home where they are staying in Paris to try to induce Lucie to speak against the new French Republic (a criminal act), Miss Pross tries to prevent her. In the fight that ensues, Madame Defarge's pistol goes off, killing herself. Miss Pross leaves Madame Defarge's body there and escapes with Jerry Cruncher, but the psychological shock and the sound of the gun cause her to go deaf. Miss Pross Miss Pross is a character in Charles Dickens' novel, "A Tale of