Question

What type of figurative language is the following line from Coffin’s The Spider? “His back legs are a pair of hands.”

personification or metaphor

Answer 1

Answer: metaphor

Explanation: the story is comparing his back legs with a pair of hands, by calling his back legs a pair of hands. a metaphor is when a word or phrase is applied to a subject to describe said subject (ex. he is a rock, she's a busy bee, etc.).

if it were a personification, the back legs would be given a human characteristic, which is not present in this case.