How does the author use metaphor in the novel, The White Tiger?

Outside Balram's home village of Laxmangarh, there is an abandoned complex of buildings called The Black Fort. While it's never entirely clear what the Fort's original purpose actually was, there is a sense that it had something to do with war or the military. For the very young Balram, it is mysterious and frightening, metaphorically representing the views and ways of the culture against which he strives to rebel. Eventually, however, he matures enough to not be frightened of the Fort; visits on a couple of occasions; and at both times, uses the Fort as a vantage point from which to spit at his town, an evocation of just how much he is desperate to leave, or move on from, the constrictive way of life it represents for him.