Pallid death
The effect of death is to make the body pale. Ascribing this effect to death itself as an adjective here is an example of metalepsis.

He is such a lead foot.
This means, "he drives fast" but only through an implied causal chain: Lead is heavy, a heavy foot would press the accelerator, and this would cause the car to speed.

In Laurence Sterne's novel, Tristram Shandy, Tristram blames his troubled life and character (the effect) on his parents' ill-timed conception of him (the remote cause)—a rather comical and extended example of metalepsis.

• Figures of Substitution
• metonymy
• catachresis
• hyperbole

• Cause and Effect