Pathetic Fallacy

A literary device wherein something nonhuman found in nature like animals, plants, natural forces etc. functions as if from human feeling or motivation or thought. The term was coined by John Ruskin in his book Modern Painters. The description will be imaginary and fanciful. The term pathetic here uses in a derogatory senses- as imparting emotions to something else. In literature inanimate objects found in the nature are often being used to mirror the mood of a person. E.g. angry tides, smiling stars etc. Victorian writers and Gothic novelists abundantly used this technique in their works. 

Examples

Wordsworth uses the image of cloud to picture the feeling of loneliness.

 I wandered lonely as a child

 That floats on high o’er vales and hills

Mary Shelley in her Frankenstein has used the pathetic fallacy effectively. 

 The desert mountains and dreary glaciers are my refuge. I have  wandered here many days; the caves of ice, which I only do not  fear, are  a dwelling to me, and the only one which man does  not grudge

The creature tells his pathetic and desolate life to his creator, Frankenstein. The desolate glaciers and desert mountains explains his status to the reader.