Personification is giving life to inanimate objects. Throughout the poem, the pencil is personified as it speaks in the first person to describe its work and feelings. Miss Phyllis uses it to write beautiful letters and Tommy uses it to draw. Mother uses it for the washing list and father uses it to note down the scores of the game. However, the pencil feels bad because it is never allowed to grow; it is made smaller and smaller by being sharpened.
It is shortened every day. When the knife begins to sharpen it; which is very painful, the pencil keeps quiet because the point has to be sharp. But the pencil is very proud of its achievement. Though its writing is dark, it is very useful and each time someone uses it, it leaves a mark. At the end of the poem, the pencil, which has become short and useless, reaches a holder, and this is the end of the pencil’s journey. In addition to the personification of the pencil, there is the personification of sorrow that seems to follow the pencil.
