Question

What is being personified in the first three stanzas of the poem?

"An old patched hat, which was almond with trim-red,
Watched as it sat on an old, thin head.
And what it saw, and what it knew,
Was more than more of you
Might even ever construe 5
From just a patched, old hat.

It’d seen a child die—Depression--a war,
Bowed at the bedside of the lady once adored,
Watched while its owner did weep when his store
Burned down to the ground, nothing left but the floor10
And that brand-new hat on his head.

It saw with lucid eyes inhuman, divine
The tired man grew older, while his boy grew wise.
Some said, ‘So tragic,’ the son said, ‘Fate’
When the lightning left a char on the elder’s pate 15
And they both did loving before too late.
That hat...his special bequest."

A) a burned store Eliminate B) a tired old man C) an old patched hat D) a child dying in war

Answer 1

The best answer here is C. Personification, by definition, is giving human like qualities to non-human things. For example, it would be like saying "the flowers danced." Flowers do not dance, humans do. By saying they are dancing as the wind blows gives a better visual and tells you that they are swaying in the breeze.

In these first stanzas, we are told the hat watches, saw, and knew things. None of those things are things that hats do; they are things that humans do.