What metaphors are used in The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan?

The Comfort of Strangers is packed with description and metaphor. Caroline, for example, is first described as a pale, disembodied face...oval in shape. Such a portrayal prepares the reader for Caroline's weakness, as well as her eerie worship of her cruel husband. Looking at her sleeping lover, Mary compares his nostrils to commas. There is vitality and the sense of speeding toward an inevitable conclusion that makes Colin's death all the more jarring, but somehow expected.