What is being personified in this paragraph? Which human quality/trait is given? Why did the writer choose to use personification? William knew that he shouldn’t have eaten the last cookie out of the cookie jar. He knew that his father loved to eat chocolate chip cookies after work, but William ate the last one anyway. Now as he waited for his father to come home, guilt poked and chewed at William. As delicious as the cookie was, William now wished that he had never opened that cookie jar.