Personification is a figure of speech that gives an animal, object or idea human characteristics. These include actions, emotions, personalities (性格), mental activities, identities (身分), and social statuses. In earlier literature, gods and deities (神佛) or other spiritual beings are personified (eg, John Milton's Paradise Lost, Greek mythology). Many cultures have fables and moral stories with personification of nature, plants and animals (eg, Aesop's The Tortoise and the Hare and The Wind and The Sun, and Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince and The Nightingale and The Rose). Personification allows abstract ideas to be more easily understood, and makes the work livelier. Writers can also use the technique to create a certain atmosphere for the whole piece of work, such as the slightly depressed mood in The Wind Cries Mary.