Pathetic fallacy is a literary device that attributes human qualities and emotions to inanimate objects of nature.
Pathetic fallacy is a kind of personification that gives human emotions to inanimate objects of nature; for example, referring to weather features reflecting a mood. Personification, on the other hand, is a broader term. It gives human attributes to abstract ideas, animate objects of nature, or inanimate non-natural objects.
For example, the sentence “The somber clouds darkened our mood” is a pathetic fallacy, as human attributes are given to an inanimate object of nature reflecting a mood. But, the sentence “The sparrow talked to us” is a personification because the animate object of nature – the sparrow – is given the human quality of “talking.”