Personification:
A figure of speech in which lifeless objects or ideas are given imaginary life. Examples:
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu. (Keats: "Ode on Melancholy")
Here "Joy" has been imagined as a living person.
"Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?"
(Keats: "To Autumn")
Autumn has been treated as a living woman.
"There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail:
(Tennyson: "Ulysses")
The vessel has been used as a living being.
Plot:
In a literary work a plot is the logical arrangement of events designed to excite curiosity or suspense. It is the structure or scheme of a literary work.
Plot and Story:
A story differs from a plot in that a story consists of events which take place one after another according to a time sequence but a plot comprises events which take place as effects of earlier causes.
E. M. Forster has illustrated the difference between a story and a plot with examples in his book, Aspects of the Novel:
The king died and then the queen died (story).
The king died and then the queen died of grief (plot).
In the first example "then" suggests time sequence—the queen died after the death of the king. In the second example "of grief' suggests cause and "died" suggests effect. Because of the death of the king the queen died. The story maintains time sequence but the plot maintains logic of cause and effect.
