The edge of the wilderness was close by. The American continent stretched endlessly west, and it was full of mystery for them. It stood, dark and threatening, over their shoulders night and day, for out of it Indian tribes marauded from time to time, and Reverend Parris had parishioners who had lost relatives to these heathen.
– Arthur Miller
The Crucible, Act 1. Miller uses personification to describe the American wilderness in the new land that the Salem colonists have made home. The narrator compares it to a dangerous and threatening human being.