What metaphors are used in Praisesong for the Widow by Paule Marshall?

Harlem, Halsey Street is a metaphor for simple pleasures. The neighborhood in which Jay and Avey lived their early married life, happy in love, having their children, dancing in their living room in the evenings, and also the place so filled with the desperation of poverty that it drove Avey to a distracting suspicion that Jay was being unfaithful, driving him to throw himself into a heart-killing pace of work.