As per google- "To destroy completely."
Answer:
The excerpt shows how the writer created a vivid metaphor based on religious language; the paragraph provides interpretations of biblical metaphors in classic texts
Explanation:
I had the same Newsela assignment
You didn't italize or mark the phrase, but I see one good candidate:
"The circus animal trainer" is in a way another name given to Mervin, a kind of "renaming" him: this is called an appositive phrase, so if this was the phrase appositive phrase is the answer! (also, I don't see the other phrases here).
