Question

Read the following excerpt from the poem "Spring" by Edna St. Vincent Millay: Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers. Which best describes the effect of personification on the overall meaning in this excerpt?
A. It compares the month of April to a babbling brook bordered with flowers to emphasize the fertility of spring.
B. It makes an allusion to April being the cruelest month of the year to echo an idea of the poet T. S. Eliot.
C. It compares the emptiness of life with the arrival of springtime to underscore the contrast between the two.
D. It makes April seem to the speaker like a mindless person to emphasize the contradictions of the month.

Answer 1

The correct answer is option letter D (It makes April seem to the speaker like a mindless person to emphasize the contradictions of the month.). Taken from the poem “Spring” by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1921), the effect of the figure of speech called personification on the overall meaning in this excerpt is to describe April as a person who babbles and strews flowers and to emphasize the contradictions of the month (April). The poem “Spring” was written after World War I. Therefore, the speaker of the poem describes the post war trauma and the feeling of negativity and discontent throughout the poem. Using personification, one can refer to animals, abstract ideas, or inanimate things as if they were human. In this case, April is given human attributes through adjectives (idiot) and actions (babble, strew). April is the month in which spring comes and one perceives it as the time when the world comes back to life; however, here April is depicted as a season that gives a false sense that death does not exist, an idiot person. The war has passed, but the consequences can still be seen (Not only under ground are the brains of men Eaten by maggots,). That is why the speaker asks rhetorically why does the season, the person “April”, come if there is no one to admire it (To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough.).

Answer 2

D. It makes april seem to the speaker like a mindless person to emphasize the contradictions of the month