Question

For seven years, Arthur kept the copper-keyed writing desk locked, its drawers holding nothing but the dry husks of unanswered correspondence and a single, heavy brass paperweight shaped like a crouching lion. To the housemaids, the lion was merely an obstacle to be dusted around, a cold lump of metal that accumulated grease from Arthur’s infrequent, heavy-pressed thumbs. But to Arthur, its weight was the anchor of his grief, pinning down the fleeting, paper-thin memories of his late brother's failed shipping venture. Whenever the urge arose to sell the house or to venture past the stagnant canals of the parish, Arthur would place his palm flat upon the lion's back. The metal was always colder than the surrounding room, drawing the warmth from his skin until his fingers felt as stiff and unresponsive as the bronze beast itself. In those moments, he felt a strange comfort in its immobility; the lion did not struggle against its confinement on the mahogany desk, and neither, he resolved, should he. It was only on the eve of the winter solstice, when the frost patterned the windowpane in mock-ferns, that he noticed the green patina creeping into the crevices of the lion's mane, a slow decay that seemed to mock his own silent preservation.

In the passage, the brass paperweight functions primarily as a symbol of which of the following?