Choose the correct figure of speech in the following sentence: Death lays his…

Concept

Personification attributes human traits, actions, emotions, or agency to non-human things or abstract ideas.

It differs from direct address in apostrophe and from the implied comparison of a metaphor.

Application

“Death” is an abstract idea. The verb “lays”, the pronoun “his”, and the phrase “icy hand” present Death as a human actor placing a hand on kings.

Contrast

• Simile: there is no explicit comparison introduced by “like” or “as”.

• Apostrophe: the speaker does not directly address Death.

• Metaphor: the sentence does not equate Death with another thing; it gives Death human action and agency.

Cross-check

Replacing “Death” with the abstract word “mortality” shows the same test: “mortality lays a hand” makes sense only when the abstraction is imagined as a human agent.

Result

Therefore, the figure of speech used in the sentence is Personification.