Pathetic Fallacy - is this a "thing"

[marmia1234]

My sons English report came home ( disclaimers: not in UK and I have a degree in English Literature)
In one section of the test they had to match a quote to its corresponding technique. For example - simile, imagery, metaphor, personification etc. One of those techniques was "pathetic fallacy" . I am flummoxed. Is this a normal thing I just missed somehow? Once he had a stab at which one was the "pathetic fallacy he was stuffed and only got 4 right out of 7 as was a bit discombobulated. Is this a common term in the UK or US
I have googled and it appears to be a version of personification.
Why is it pathetic?
Trying to add poll but seem to be unable.
YABU - everybody knows the term "Pathetic fallacy"
YANBU - WTF nobody has heard of that

I studied those books too, very early 90s and I have no recollection of being taught it.

edit: just reading more posts and we used to talk of symbolism a lot. But I don’t recall using the phrase pathetic fallacy.

The thing that strikes me the most about any post like this, is the confirmation bias that follows.
The people who have not heard of something that is in the op, will go to great lengths to try and assert their own limited experience as “fact”

There's an awful lot of folk on here who can’t accept that “pathetic fallacy” isn’t an unusual or unheard of term to many others, simply because they themselves have never heard of it. In reality, it’s something we all use, all the time-you just might not have known what it’s called. Attributing emotion to something inanimate is a pathetic fallacy. I’m pretty sure most people here have said something along the lines of “those waves look angry” or “the clouds look quite sinister”

It's a very common term in English.

I learnt this at school.

I'm often surprised at the many things millennials haven't been taught. Education in the UK is so much better now.

Thanks for contributing.

It is (or was back in my day) routinely taught in Ireland to Leaving Cert English students (which is everyone, it's a core subject).

Oh wow I’ve always thought it was ‘prophetic fallacy’ as well! Mind blown.

As in it was predicting how something would feel but was impossible.

Now I’m confused as I would have thought “those waves look angry” or “the clouds look sinister” was more personification and not pathetic fallacy? (Currently re-sitting my English Language GCSE in my 40’s - for fun!)

You know what really annoys me? People conflating education and training like this. Because you don't use something at work doesn't mean it's not useful to know it. It broadens theming. Gives you a wider field of reference. Helps you (in this case) enjoy things you read for fun.

It’s both. You wouldn’t be wrong for calling it personification either. Pathetic fallacy doesn’t have to also use personification but it can (as in the example).

Sausage Dog, you are correct. That's personification, not pathetic fallacy.

They are very similar!
BBC Bitesize Definition-
What is pathetic fallacy?
Pathetic fallacy is giving human emotions/feelings to naturally-occurring things, usually weather.(It’s longer than that but seems to relate more to the emotions of an inanimate object)

This is reminding me of a first year exam script I once marked, which discussed in detail Virginia Woolf’s use of the ‘inferior monologue’.

It definitely is a thing. I remember it well from my GCSE/English A Level days.

Unless I've misunderstood your point, I don't think anyone who hasn't heard of the term is unaware of the concept.

I hadn't heard of the term but I am certainly familiar with weather/surroundings being used as a tool to convey a characters mood.

No, that's not what happens. There are no marks for spotting and naming a technique. You have to explain its effect and, for higher grades, why the author used it. You can do this without knowing the term but it's much quicker if you do (plus you are more likely to spot a technique if you know that it is a technique because you know the term for it).

We used to hear about it mostly wrt the Romantic poets - I see from wiki that that started with Ruskin too.

55 here and we did it at school. Wuthering Heights, Macbeth, King Lear.

Any of the kids I have taught over 25 years also know it. It's a great tool to encourage descriptions in writing too.

@Calliopespa I don't think pathetic fallacy implies any human emotion in the part of the weather - it's just reflecting human emotion, so it doesn't have to be personification. I agree there can be cross over though.

Your examples are personification, not pathetic fallacy. To be pathetic fallacy the violent waves would have to be reflecting the anger of a character, not just being a bit wild themselves.

I'm another oddly-specific-learnt-it-in-the-00s-for-GCSE -er
Although from what I can remember not in as much detail as @valentinka31 , more of a "when the weather reflects the character's mood."

I did an eng lit degree (don't drive a skoda though 😂) and even then I did wonder if all the authors really deliberately intend all their metaphors and symbolism and literary devices or if we were reading far too much into it. I write myself and tbh the words just....come out without much deliberation behind them, so who knows! I still remember being told that "food in children's lit is a symbolism for sex" and thinking, really? Sometimes a cake is just a cake...

I'm a boomer/Gen X borderline who was taught about it and has taught it since 2988, so to a lot of millennials. We do know more about the process of teaching now, so in that sense it has got better. Not in terms of content though I don't think.

Agree @cardibach .

That definition is just wrong. It's when inanimate things (usually the weather in practice) reflect the emotions of a character, not when they are portrayed as having their own emotions. That's personification.