Explanation
Approach
This line is from John Masefield's classic poem "Sea Fever": "I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, / And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by." To identify the figure of speech, we need to focus on how the ship is referred to in this line.
Step-by-step
Step 1: Identify the key word
Notice the pronoun used for the ship: "a star to steer her by." The ship — an inanimate object — is referred to using the feminine pronoun "her", as if it were a living being with a gender/identity, rather than using the neutral pronoun "it."
Step 2: Identify the device
Personification is a figure of speech in which human qualities, attributes, or a sense of life/identity are given to a non-human or inanimate object. Referring to a ship as "her" — a traditional nautical convention — personifies the vessel, treating it as though it has a living, almost human/feminine identity, deserving of care and guidance (being "steered").
Step 3: Rule out the other options
- Not Metaphor — There's no direct, implied comparison equating the ship to something else entirely; it's simply given human-like identity through pronoun usage.
- Not Simile — There's no explicit comparison using "like" or "as."
- Not Alliteration — While the line does contain some repeated sounds, the defining, commonly cited figure of speech in this exact phrase is the personification of the ship as "her," not a consonant-sound pattern.
Correct Option: C) Personification — the ship is given the feminine pronoun "her," attributing a human/living identity to an inanimate vessel — a classic example of nautical personification, and one of the most famous instances of this device in English poetry.