How does the author use metaphor in the story, A Family Supper?

Ishiguro uses a metaphor to develop the father’s character in this story. When the father is talking to the protagonist just before dinner, the father takes the protagonist into a room and shows him his model battleship collection. The father begins to talk about the relationship between parents and their children before remarking that the gunships “could have been better glued” (210). The placement of this line suggests that the gunboats are a metaphor for the children, and the battleship is a metaphor for the father. This imagery presents the father as militant and regretful of the fact that he was so detached from his children.