وَإِذَا الْمَنِيَّةُ أَنْشَبَتْ أَظْفَارَهَا
And when death sinks in its claws.
The expression figures death as a beast that drives in its claws. The possessive “its claws” associates death with a sensory feature ordinarily proper to an animal. It invites the classical discussion of concealed and imaginative metaphor, including distinct explanations of their relationship.
An adequate analysis identifies what is being depicted, where the implied predatory animal enters the comparison, and how the claws support that image. Merely seeing the word “claws” and assigning every possible label without qualification would erase the subtle points on which the interpretations differ.