How does the author use symbolism in the novel, Where Reasons End?

The author uses boxes to symbolize memory. Before Nikolai committed suicide, the family was planning to move into a new house. His possessions were boxed and sealed. Each time the mother opened a box, “it let out a memory that no space could contain” (46). And each box, like a Pandora’s box, release memories ready to entangle the mother into more grief and sadness. The boxes become a method of boxing the mother into a time of memory, of what once existed.