In this illustration by Milo Winter of
Aesop's fable,
The North Wind and the Sun, a personified North Wind tries to strip the cloak off of a traveler.
Personification is a figure of speech where non-living objects are described to seem like people.
In the arts, personification means representing a non-human thing as if it were human. Personification gives human traits and qualities, such as emotions, desires, sensations, gestures and speech, often by way of a metaphor.