Sunset

Term: Sunset
Method: Metaphor

Once upon a time, the sun never set on the British Empire and yet though this geographical oddity may have been true (before the Second World War, the British Empire had possessions that covered most of the time zones in the world) the metaphor was no more true for Britain than it was for Rome or will be for the United States. The sun sets on all empires; time makes everything but time obsolete. Thus the metaphor, the sun sets, time passes, things end. To reject sunsets is to believe the earth is flat.