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

Literally everyone mainstream educated in the uk since the early 90s will have been taught this. It’s taught at GCSE English. It’s a really common technique used especially by 19th century writers, and it’s where the weather mimics the tone, usually in a negative sense. From the French pathétique,
meaning melancholic or evoking pity. From the Latin, fallere, meaning deception. IE it’s a trick the writer uses to make you feel more sadness or foreboding.

If you genuinely have an English lit degree and don’t know what it is then you should be pretty embarrassed, tbh. The Brontes, Dickens, Eliot, even Austen - it’s all full of it.

All I can say is, I managed without this particular term perfectly well.

I saw it being taught to a Y6 class in the UK (aged 10/11) last week! I was surprised as I wasn’t taught it until I was in my teens, but they grasped the idea quickly. Your son wouldn't have been tested on it if the class hadn’t been taught it.

I don't recall ever being taught the term. I have an A at Eng Lit A-level and studied some literature for my degree. I'm nearly 50 though and from a quick scan through the thread I can only see one poster older than that saying they were taught it at school, so maybe it has only been commonly taught since the mid-90s.

I’m an English teacher so obviously my opinion is going to be skewed, but yes it’s a very standard literary device taught to GCSE students and I would expect most of them to know it from Year 9.

Yes. I was born in 1978, uni for English and straight into teaching. Have always taught it. And it's always been discussed. So yes, coincidence.

Pathetic fallacy and personification both involve attributing human traits to non-human entities, but there are key differences in how and why they're used.
Pathetic fallacy specifically ties nature or objects to the emotions of the story or characters, while personification is a broader technique where inanimate things are simply given human qualities.
“The wind whispered through the trees”, is personification because the wind is given a human ability (whispering), but it doesn’t necessarily mirror a character’s emotions.

I'm no expert, but I'm not sure you're right about it just being the environment. Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge that it is, indicates it is inanimate objects too. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathetic_fallacy. To me, it seems that the definition of Pathetic Fallacy and Personification overlap quite a lot

This thread is very interesting and educational though - my English tuition stopped at GCSE and my school wasn't very good. I have now learnt the origins of the phrase and it makes more sense (Pathos) and learnt about John Ruskin who I had never heard of before.

Knowing the correct term and applying it would save a lot of verbosity when trying to explain something.

I know those who have received a poor education have to try and justify it and that's fine-after all, they have probably paid through the nose for the equivalent of a second hand Skoda- and so I will say no more.

Never heard of it either.

British cultural critic John Ruskin created the definition of pathetic fallacy in the mid-1800s in his book Modern Painters. The term sounds derogative, and indeed Ruskin coined it to denounce the sentimentality that he saw as being overused in poetry in the late 18th century. The two terms “pathetic” and “fallacy” have changed quite a bit since Ruskin first joined them. In his day, “pathetic” meant anything pertaining to emotion, while “fallacy” meant “falseness.” Thus, the original definition of pathetic fallacy was simply emotional falseness.
Pathetic fallacy is a phrase used in science to discourage the attribution of emotions to natural phenomena. Thus, it is still pejorative in this field, while it is not negative when used in literature. Scientists consider pathetic fallacies such as “Nature abhors a vacuum” to be inaccurate and overly vague.

Surely whether you were taught it, though, depends on which texts you studied? If the author employed that particular device in one of your literature set texts you would learn about it, and if she didn’t, you wouldn’t?

Don't remember it from my own secondary education, but could have explained everything else on your list. I knew of it as a literary device, but didn't know it had its own name.

School in the 70’s in England followed by a degree and I’ve never come across the term but my Scottish DH has. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yes, very standard in the UK. But as you say, we all have weird blind spots!

I haven't read every reply so you may already have been told this but, "pathetic" means affecting the emotions (hence empathetic, sympathetic etc.) It's not mocking the character (or the weather!)

If you can explore the effect, it does help though. I say that as a GCSE English Literature examiner (AQA). It sets apart the grade 9s because they can write much more succinctly and directly if they have more terminology at their disposal. And the ones that are “rarely required” are the ones that will really set the grade 9s apart in the unseen questions.

I did English language and literature in the 90s and got As. I don't remember being taught any terms at all for studying literature. I only remember writing about a few texts and a film in assignments, I don't remember exams but I may have just forgotten. So this thread has taught me about this term.

I’ve also got an English degree (thirty years ago) and this isn’t something I was taught either at GCSE or A level.

snort. I’m currently a cleaner at a school (yes yes degree etc but needs must at the moment, hard life and all that shit) and I only realised what pathetic fallacy was when I was reading the corrider English show case boards whilst I was bored mid sweep 😆

I spot it everywhere now.

Are there grey skies where you are @MyLadyGreensleeves ?

But pathetic fallacy isn’t an aspect of which critical perspective you’re approaching a text from, it’s just a literary device, like metaphor or analepsis. It’s always present. You can view a novel through a feminist lens, exploring how Bronte is trying to merge an unusual female Bildungsroman onto a romance, while noting the way the natural environment tends to reflect Jane’s emotions (‘Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy’, she says the morning after Rochester proposes) or that way she, lacking a mother, is continually attributing maternal qualities to the moon or the natural environment.

Terminology alone is not a marker of a 9 though. Far too many students obsess with feature spotting Greek terms and don't do what comes next.
Terminology can save time yes, but the explanation is far more important. And that's the but that can't be drilled/quizzed in the same way as the definition of terminology.

They aren’t quite the same. You could describe stormy or calm weather, to mimic a character's feelings, without using personification.

I noticed it for the first time a few days ago. I did GCE English over 50 years ago and it never came up then.

I notice everyone who’s heard of it referencing GCSEs. I’m an ‘O’ leveller so I don’t think the phrase was taught in my day (before the National Curriculum existed). I do remember being taught similes, metaphors and onomatopoeias though.

😂

Perhaps blizzards, given her icy replies

I did o levels and was taught what it was.