Suppose an orator is called رأيت أسداً يخطب—“I saw a lion preaching.” The transfer from a brave man to a lion has already taken place. Further lion-associated details may function as reinforcement.
In “death sinks in its claws,” however, the word “death” remains and claws are attributed to that non-bodily subject. The associated feature participates in making the imagined attribution itself.
Neither figure physically transfers animal organs to a human or to death. Both are rhetorical, but their structures differ.