What metaphors are used in Rosa by Cynthia Ozick?

Buttons are a recurring metaphor in the story. Simon Persky tells Rosa he once owned a button factory. Later, Rosa reflects on how trivial Persky's life seems to her, "himself no more significant than a button." Then she extends this metaphor to the city's entire population: "All of Miami Beach, a box for useless buttons!" When Rosa flies into a rage after opening the package from Dr. Tree, she yells at Persky, "I'm not your button, Persky! I'm nobody's button." And finally, when the vision of Magda appears wearing a dress Rosa herself wore as a teenager, the buttons are so beautiful that "Persky could never have been acquainted with buttons like that." Attached to cloth, buttons function as fasteners, creating connection, holding separate parts together; collected in a box, buttons are useless, meaningless. Buttons become a metaphor for these elderly people, collected in Florida, but detached and without function or purpose.