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

We learned this in the mid 90s, my main memory at A Level when we studied Wuthering Heights which was full of it!

I'm not saying you can't. I am just explaining how she might have studied a text without reference to one particular term.

It's a literary device taught in primary school in the UK.

It would have been before the national curriculum so each school was different.

I left school ten years before the NC came into effect.

We were learning about it 25 years ago in gcse and alevel English. I wrote a fair bit about it in my alevel exam paper I think - I think the book was Brighton Rock

@Gymrabbit they aren’t the same.

When Alfred Noyes says “the moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon stormy seas” fair enough because he’s describing the weather as being something else.

When Stevenson describes the weather as being dark, damp and foggy whenever Hyde appears, that’s pathetic fallacy. He’s not saying the weather is a character, or is anything else. He’s using it to mimic the inner turmoil of Jekyll’s mind.

Does that make sense?

I don’t recall ever having been taught such a term either. And I did English at A Level in the mid 2000s!

No English degree here but definitely heard of it.

I never knew about this until my DS started taking about it. I can't remember if it was during his 11 plus prep or something he covered in Y7 but I know it was a new concept to me.

Who hurt you @MyLadyGreensleeves

Your “put downs” aren’t very original or well thought out, but full marks for trying 🤣

To be fair, I have an English degree and have never ever heard of this??

Maybe it was just not on the curriculum when I did my gcse, a level & degree, but I feel a bit cheated seeing how many are saying this is basic when I have never come across it!

So possible the OP also just had teachers and lecturers who didn’t teach it.

Also… Shakespeare was my specialist subject at uni and I did king Lear at gcse level, so I don’t think it’s a given you will learn it if you study king Lear!

I'm 45 and we covered this in GCSE when we studied Hardy. It's like oxbow lakes for me, one of the few things that really stuck 😂

I did my English GCSEs 20 years ago and wasn't taught it. I also didn't study any of the texts mentioned alongside it in this thread

The techniques taught will be picked to match what that class is studying and if you didn't study a text that uses it then it won't be taught.

You have clearly never marked a literature essay. Whether they use the term “pathetic fallacy”, “symbolism” or “personification”, they’re going to need to explain how this creates impact and why the author would want to do this. Simply labelling it as “pathetic fallacy” isn’t enough to do this.

Yes itsca thing. Kids are learning it in nat5 English and definitely Higher. Very common in poetry. Look at Macbeth and Porphyria's lover.

Congrats to everyone desperate to say they have heard of it, and extra points to those who use it “extensively” through school (really?).
Now, who has actually had cause to call on this essential knowledge in the intervening x years of adulthood? And no, helping your kids with their homework does not count.
I imagine everyone is so keen to post they know it because it’s the first time in 20 years they have had to think about it.

I mean, it’s come in pretty handy right now….

In all seriousness though, I actually think about it all the time - whenever I’m having a shitty day and the weather is a bit crap, I think “well at least there’s a spot of pathetic fallacy to emphasise the point”!

Haha!

I am one of the poorly-educated second hand Skoda drivers (see PP post) who wasn't taught this by my A Level English teacher in the early 00s. I've actually quite enjoyed the opportunity to learn something new on this sunny Sunday morning!

It is a thing.

The 'pathetic' bit is pathos - and 'pathos' in Greek can be translated as 'suffering', but it needs a bit more detail: really it means experiencing the challenges of being alive.

The 'fallacy' bit is it isn't really true, the rain isn't really falling because you are crying.

So put together, it's kind of 'the natural world around you seems to reflect the suffering you are going through'.

Tangible example:

A character is feeling deep sadness and crying inside.
S/he is walking over a moor and the weather is sombre/sad/wind howling/rain pouring.

It's when the writer lets the emotions/feeling expand out into a wider physical expression of them.

S/he is deliriously happy and in love - it's all sunny, the sky is blue, flowers are flowering, etc.

Classic example of how teaching something at primary/gcse gives it too much importance at a simplified level.

It's one technique and academically quite complex in terms of its history and also how we understand it in terms of metaphor, personification, symbolism etc.

But this is the issue with the 'bitesize' approach to teaching something - and a lesson in how quite often only the first part of the whole is ever taught. (See 'rules' on grammar for other examples).

But interesting discussion everyone - have much enjoyed reading it.

YABU. I was first taught it in year 9 I think.

Literary terms would generally be covered in the first year of an Eng Lit degree, probably as part of a module focusing on practical criticism/close reading, or introduction to studying Eng Lit.

Are you sure all universities are teaching literary terms in their first year? I studied English about 15 years ago and it was expected that we would already have this knowledge from our schooling. From what I remember, my first year focused mostly on a) how to actually structure an essay and b) looking at the wider impact of particular texts. The close analysis was on us and improved over time with feedback from tutors.

I also just want to point out that OP's son is 12 years old.

So those commenting on what you were/weren't/should/shouldn't have been taught at GSCE, A Level, Undergrad Level... Interesting but not entirely relevant to OP. That includes me.