Question

Read the following passage carefully before choosing your answer.

The desk in the corner of the registry office had belonged to three generations of chief clerks before Thomas took his seat. It was a massive, dark block of mahogany, scarred by the ink of forgotten transactions and smelling faintly of damp ledger paper and stale tobacco. On its far corner sat a heavy, leaden inkwell, shaped like a crouching gargoyle with its mouth agape. The lead had dulled to a dark, ash-grey, and the lid was encrusted with dried layers of violet ink that had dried and cracked like parched earth. Thomas rarely opened it, preferring the modern steel pens that required no dipping, yet he could not bring himself to move it. On winter afternoons, as the fog pressed against the high windows and the yellow gaslight flickered, the inkwell seemed to absorb what little light remained in the room, casting a squat, heavy shadow that stretched across his blank ledgers. It sat there as a silent, immovable anchor, weighing down the papers beneath it, holding them fast against the draft that constantly blew under the door, reminding Thomas of the endless lines of neat, uniform script that had defined his father's life and would, inevitably, define his own.

In the passage, the leaden inkwell functions primarily as a symbol of which of the following?