metaphor

The settings—generic spaces such as cafés, train stations, hotel lobbies, and offices—tend to be described with similar brevity, while the detectives’ actions are recounted in prose generally lacking metaphor, simile, or fanciful digression.

They might serve as a metaphor for highways, or neural networks indicating the reach of human imagination.

William H. Herndon, Lincoln’s future law partner and biographer, said “it was highly sophomoric in character and abounded in striking and lofty metaphor . . . the thing people expect from a young man.”

Often those wanderers end up dying, Tom tells Robbie, who doesn’t appreciate the metaphor.

Sir Terry later described the project as a "tremendous release", and the Royal Academy called it a "pop building, through its sheer abundance of metaphor".