What metaphors are used in The Elephant Man by Bernard Pomerance?

The Elephant Man does not end with the death of John Merrick. He is survived by another, equally ironic, symbol of transcendence on the stage: the model of St. Phillip' s Church. Pomerance' s remarks on what this church signifies are suggestive but laconic. In an "Introductory Note" to the Grove Press edition of the play, he writes: "I believe the building of the church model constitutes some kind of central metaphor, and the groping toward conditions where it can be built and the building of it are the action of the play." The "conditions where it can be built," Pomerance says elsewhere, are "the right venue he [Merrick] could survive in."