What is the symbolism in the book The House of Hawthorne by Erika Robuck?

One particularly wonderful example of symbolism in The House of Hawthorne can be seen when Sophia is in Rome, hoping to regain the artistic creativity that she lost upon marrying the famous writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. Yet try as she might, she just can't get it back. Sophia's lost creativity is symbolized by the broken pencil she holds in her hand while she suffers the agonies of the blank page beneath her.
In her marriage to Nathaniel, she'd hoped to create an almost spiritual union between artist and writer. Yet Sophia found herself forced to abandon such an exalted partnership as she fulfilled the conventional roles of wife and mother. In the wake of Nathaniel's death, one might have thought that Sophia's creativity would've returned, but sadly, that has not been the case. To be sure, there is one final work of art left in her, but it's a chronicle of her late husband's life, not her own.