What is an example of metaphor in the novel, Small Things Like These?

The young woman who gives Furlong her kettle acts as a metaphor for the discontentment and confusion that Furlong feels in his own life. Midway through the novella, Furlong finds the padlock of the coal yard frozen shut. He visits a nearby home and asks a young woman inside for hot water with which to unfreeze the lock. Furlong soon finds himself wondering about “what it might be like to live there, in that house, with her as his wife” (57). Furlong projects his fantasies onto the woman, thus imagining the other possible paths his life might have taken. In this way, the woman symbolizes Furlong’s yearning for some unattainable, romanticized alternate reality.