What metaphors are used in Imagined Scenes by Ann Beattie?

Beattie's allusion to the story, Rip Van Winkle, suggests that she wants the reader to consider all aspects of sleep, both literal and metaphorical. As noted above, sleep deprivation leads to the kinds of distortions of reality experienced by the narrator. One need not posit an actual affair on the part of the husband to understand why the sleep-deprived narrator might read her environment to support such an interpretation. At the metaphoric level, however, sleep plays yet another function: The narrator is not the only character in the story who sleeps or does not sleep; the old man says he has trouble sleeping. David claims that he is sleeping when the narrator calls him on the phone. Like the omnipresent snow (the mention of which nearly always follows mention of sleep), the sleeping state becomes a metaphor for contemporary, fragmented existence.