Three Men Walk into a Bar
Metaphor is used for shorthanded character description inside a tavern. On a bench in that tavern sit three men: Andrew Merry-Lees, Praying Howard and Mole. Descriptions are as follows relative to their introduction:
“a cadaverous clown; a deacon of the drinking-cellar, a pillar unrespectability”
“almost benevolent, almost sweet and saintly…run to seed and whisky”
“almost furry, like a mole.”
Resurrectionist
"Resurrectionist" is both a synonym for graverobbers and a metaphorical nod to the reality of Jesus coming back from the dead. This is the preferred term of those who engage in body-snatching and graverobbing because, of course, it sounds much better. And it also contains that little nugget of respectability: after all, if Jesus was resurrected from the grave to serve a higher purpose then why not the dead bodies stolen from cemeteries to serve the higher purpose of studying anatomy.
Dr. Rock’s Way with Words
Dr. Rock truly has a way with words. He is perfectly fine calling graverobbers “resurrectionists” but that is nothing compared to the metaphorical stretch he engages to identify a man of conscience:
“No vicious-minded little prig with emotional adenoids is going to intimidate me with his whine and wail of `Murder! Murder!’”
No Damned Spots Here
Dr. Rock is the kind of guy who likes to impress others with a bit of highfalutin’ fancy talk. He’s riding high himself, all right, right toward a fall on the sore rump of his pride. Shortly—well, almost immediately—after dismissing the man of conscience who would stand in the way of his elevated study of anatomy, he reaches for Shakespeare to make of himself a metaphorical victim:
“My hands, to him, are red as Macbeth’s”
This Is the End
The text ends on a metaphor. As Dr. Rock finally comes to grips with his own guilt and he falls off his high horse of pride once and for all, the stage directions engage metaphor to hit the point home:
“And he passes us and climbs up the long hill, and his voice climbs with him into darkness, into a whisper, into silence, into the climax of
MUSIC”
