What is a good symbol to represent The Giver (the full book) as a whole?

There are probably many symbols that could be used to answer this question, but if I had to choose one it would be the bookshelves full of books in the Giver's room.

The books in his room represent the world's knowledge, but because they are locked up in his room and he is the only one who has access to them, they are practically worthless and at the same time they are invaluable. They represent...

There are probably many symbols that could be used to answer this question, but if I had to choose one it would be the bookshelves full of books in the Giver's room.

The books in his room represent the world's knowledge, but because they are locked up in his room and he is the only one who has access to them, they are practically worthless and at the same time they are invaluable. They represent ALL of the knowledge that the community does not have. They represent all of the knowledge that only the Giver has access to. They represent forbidden knowledge, and in Jonas's society, anything that the Elders did not give to the citizens IS forbidden knowledge.

"Jonas stared at them. He couldn't imagine what the thousands of pages contained. Could there be rules beyond the rules that governed the community?" (Ch. 10).

Jonas was literally completely dumbfounded that these existed, let alone that there could be knowledge out there that he did not have access to. I think the books represent everything the community is missing—access to knowledge.