The combination of “death” with “claws” is itself unusual and signals that literal zoological anatomy is not being reported. “Sinking in” the claws and the failure of protective charms strengthen the listener's recognition of the intended image.
The contextual clue helps exclude the idea that death literally becomes an animal; the force and inevitability of death are represented through predation. This must be distinguished from the shared resemblance: forceful seizure is the shared feature, whereas the contextual clue makes the nonliteral reading appropriate.
If actual claws are attributed to an actual beast, the same noun may be completely literal. Context is therefore indispensable to the rhetorical judgment.