Metaphor: Difficult Situation
The Mayor proclaims to his fellow civil servants that he will go over to the inn and talk to the inspector first: "No, let me handle it. I've been in some tight corners and I've always muddled through." (229). The Mayor uses the metaphor of being stuck in a tight corner to express that he has been in difficult situations before—perhaps situations that have seemed to be unfixable—but he has always managed to get through it. He uses the word "muddle" to imply that it was tough going but he made it anyway. The metaphor is thus intended to inspire confidence among his peers.
Metaphor: Life
Khlestakov waxes poetic about food, saying "I'm mad about good food. But what else is life for except to pluck the blossoms of pleasure..." (254.) The image is of a person picking a beautiful flower and feeling immense pleasure in its appearance and smell. This is what Khlestakov uses to suggest how much he loves life—and, specifically, how he views good food. He is a gourmand (glutton?) and food is one of his vices; the experience of consuming food thus takes on a hyperbolic spiritual and aesthetic tinge due to the metaphor.
Simile: Patients
When Khlestakov visits the hospital, he sees that there are just a few patients, and when he remarks upon this to the Warden of Charities, the Warden answers: “since I took charge the patients have been recovering like flies” (254). This, of course, is not the normal idiom "dying like flies." That makes the simile darkly ironic because it is likely that the patients did not receive adequate care and died, creating the situation that the Warden passes off to Khlestakov as salubrious.
Metaphor: Intelligence
When the Judge brags that he is an atheist because he actually thinks deeply about things, the Mayor scoffs, "Too much grey matter can be worse than none" (222). The metaphor of "gray matter," which literally refers to brain cells, allows the reader to see that the Mayor is not pleased with anyone that seems to have too much of anything—too much intellect, too many ideas, too strong of a moral compass.
Metaphor: Officials
The Mayor tries desperately to impress Khlestakov by comparing himself to other mayors: "In other towns, if I may say so, mayors and other officials are more concerned with feathering their own nests." (254). "Feathering their own nests" refers to birds using their own feathers or other birds' feathers to make their own nest more comfortable, and it has long been an idiom for people caring more about themselves—their homes, their portfolios, their wealth, etc.—than anything else. Ironically, the Mayor and his officials are guilty of this very thing.
