In Richard Wright's story "Big Black Good Man," where do some metaphors and similes appear and how do they function?

In Richard Wright’s story “Big Black Good Man,” metaphors
and similes appear in various places and function in a variety of ways. Examples include
the following:

• Early in the story, a student
  complains about the weather in Denmark by saying, “’This dampness keeps me clogged up
  like a drain pipe.’” This simile (a comparison using “like” or
  “as”) helps characterize the student as a somewhat imaginative person and
  makes the phrasing more vivid than it would have been if the final four words were
  missing.


• Shortly thereafter, Olaf Jenson, a Danish night
  porter, refers to his tenants as his “children.” This metaphor (a
  comparison not using “like” or “as” and thus implying almost an identity between the two
  things compared) helps characterize Jenson as an apparently caring man
  and reminds us that he regrets that he and his wife never had children.  The effect
  would be much weaker if he had said that his tenants were “like” his children or if he
  had said that they were “almost” his children. By calling them his children, he gives
  much more force to the comparison.


• At one point, a black
  person is described as “a huge black thing” – a metaphor that compares a human being, in
  the strongest possible terms, with something non-human, even non-living. This metaphor
  shows how language can be used to dehumanize
  others.


• Shortly thereafter, another metaphor is used to
  describe the black person as a “black giant.” The phrasing would be less powerful if
  Wright had written that the man “looked like a giant” or “was as big as a giant.”
  Instead, the phrase “black giant” again suggests that this person is non-human or is at
  least extremely unusual.


• As the narrator strains to
  describe the black man’s appearance, similes
  abound:

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His chest bulged like a barrel; his rocklike and
humped shoulders hinted of mountain ridges; the stomach ballooned like a threatening
stone and the legs were like telephone
poles.

The similes used here
imply that plain, non-figurative language cannot do justice to the man’s build or to the
astonishment it evokes from Olaf.

• The metaphor
  “ballooned” is soon followed by another metaphor, in which the unexpected visitor is
  called a “black cloud,” which suggests his size and perhaps the possibility of a storm
  (thus echoing the earlier phrase “threatening stone”). This same sentence also contains
  another simile, comparing the visitor to a buffalo; yet another simile, comparing the
  visitor to an advancing storm; and a somewhat shocking metaphor in which the man is
  treated as a thing when the narrator refers to “its
  head.”

All in all, most of the similes and
metaphors just noted have the following
effects:

• they alter the previously calm, placid
  mood the story


• they create suspense by suggesting the
  possibility of danger


• they make us wonder how the
  narrator expects us to react to such figurative language, especially the language that
  seems dehumanizing