At the metaphorical level, however, perhaps there is more to this quote than it's length suggests...

The scholarly Gates maintained that such lyrics were to be understood on the "figurative or metaphorical" level, and referred to the band as "literary geniuses."

The playwright took that comment on a metaphorical as well as psychological level.

Her "moving," on a metaphorical level, may have something to do with the film's predictably uplifting emotional payoff.

"F.O.B." begins as a comedy about the possibilities and perils of assimilation, but it aspires to a deeper metaphorical level.

Like Lopatkina's, Da Silva's self-choreographed performance works at both the representational and the metaphorical level.

VanDerWerff also positively critiqued the manner in which "the monster [...] works on a metaphorical level as well".

Like much of the best art that has emerged in response to AIDS, Mr. Moore's operates on many levels, political, metaphorical and personal.

So, at anything other than an exceedingly general and metaphorical level, there is not a single set of criteria for a contradiction in the Marxist sense.