are almost part of the performance.

In Act I, scene i, Horatio begs the ghost to speak and to unburden himself if perhaps, he cannot rest because, in life, he "extorted treasure in the womb of the earth," (137). Earth is clearly personified as a woman who may then be part of the deceit, in hiding these so-called "treasures;" much like his current understanding of his own mother's betrayal. This use of personification then foreshadows events that will follow concerning Hamlet's mother's impending marriage to her brother-in-law. 

The whole kingdom mourns the death of Hamlet's father, "in one brow of woe," (I.ii.4). A brow or forehead is often drawn and furrowed, the frown revealing the concern. Personification ensures that the full extent of the grief is not underestimated. 

In Act I, scene iv, Hamlet questions the vision as he knows that his father is dead and wonders how his father can be present when Hamlet saw for himself, the "canonized bones," (46). The sepulcher is personified as it has opened, "his ponderous and marble jaws," (50). Note "his jaws," not its, confirming the human characteristics. Personification helps the audience understand the magnitude of events and to join the characters in their anxiety and despair.

As you probably know, personification is a type of metaphor that gives human characteristics to a non-human object. Several can be found in the first chapter of Hamlet.

In Act One, Scene One, Line 115, Horatio states that

"The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead / Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;"

Later, in Line 118

"...and the moist star / Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands / Was sick almost to doomsday..."

Still later in Scene One, Line 160, Marcellus responds that

"The bird of dawning singeth all night long, / And then they say no spirit dare stir abroad; / The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, / No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm..."

Shortly after, in Line 166, Horatio replies

"But look the morn in russet mantle clad / Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill."

In Act 2, Scene 2, Line 173

Hamlet:
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog

The sun is a star. While its warmth and distance from the Earth helps create the perfect environment for life to thrive, it cannot breed. Hamlet's use of the word personifies the sun, giving it a quality that humans and other living creatures have (the ability to procreate). Logically, the sun doesn't breed the maggots in the dog—but it creates a perfect environment for it to thrive. This use of personification simplifies the science behind what Hamlet is saying while creating the image of the sun doing something only living creatures can do.

In Act 2, Scene 2, Lines 432 and 433

First Player:
Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls

Swords are inanimate objects; they can't be rebellious. The use of personification here was Shakespeare's way of describing a sword that's ineffective—one that this person is having trouble using. Instead of saying it doesn't work, Shakespeare calls it rebellious. This personifies the sword and creates a different image as opposed to "his antique sword, which he had trouble swinging, fell."

There are many examples of personification in Act V, Scene ii of William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Before we get into a few examples, let us look at the definition of 'personification' (provided here by the Oxford University Press): "The attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something non-human, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form". Next, we can use the following example (created specifically for our purposes): "the tree slept throughout the cold autumn afternoon, unaware of the chaos surrounding it." In this example, "the tree" is the non-human object. It is given human characteristics by suggesting that it "slept" and is "unaware", with the idea being that a tree neither sleeps nor has awareness as a human being would.

Now, let us look at two examples of personification in Act V, Scene ii of Hamlet:

KING CLAUDIUS: [...] Give me the cups;
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth,
"Now the king dunks to Hamlet."

In the above quote, King Claudius is attempting to trick Hamlet into drinking poison. He proposes a toast in which each item will "speak" to the next. This human characteristic - that of speech - is given to the four objects: the "kettle", "trumpet", "cannons", and "heavens". While the first three items can conceivably make sound, none of them "speak" in the way that a human being does.

HAMLET: [...] O God, Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!

Hamlet - after being mortally wounded with a poisoned sword - reflects on the fact that his reputation will be tarnished if nobody lives to tell others what has happened. There are two examples of personification in this quote. First, we have the notion that a "name" can be "wounded". Second, "[t]hings standing thus unknown" (i.e. knowledge of what has happened) is an abstract concept which is given the human characteristic, "[to] live." The idea here is that knowledge itself does not possess life in the same way a human being does.

Hamlet, arriving unexpectedly back in Denmark, says to Horatio that sometimes "our deep plots do pall." Plots or plans are abstract future goals we pursue, and they certainly do not "pall" or pale as humans do, so this is an instance of personification.

Hamlet also describes "my fears forgetting manners" as he outlines to Horatio what happened on his journey to England. He tells Horatio of how he searched in the dark, groping around, for the packet Claudius sent to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Humans have manners; fears do not, so Hamlet is personifying manners in this utterance. He is saying that his fears of what Claudius had planned for him made him put niceties aside and read the private mail of the courtiers. It was lucky for him that his fears did forget their manners, because he discovered that the packet demanded he be beheaded on arriving in England.

"O proud Death, what feast is toward in thine eternal cell that thou so many princes at a shot so bloodily hast struck?" Lines 403-406.

Fortinbras speaks these words upon entering the hall where so many royalty have been slain. He personifies death by making it a proper noun and speaking directly to it as if it were a person itself. He gives it human qualities (i.e.Death feasts, it took princes, it is proud), which is essentially what personification is.