"Escaping the Confines": My Take on a Symbol From "The Giver"

In The Giver, a required summer reading book for my English class, there are many themes and symbols used throughout the book.  One way to disclose a message through these symbols or themes in literature is through using visuals.  In  this book, one of the symbols is the river.  During the entire story Jonas is confined to a small city that experiences "sameness" (everybody is forced to monotony and repetition), but once he realizes that there is a world outside the constraints he is living in, his inquisitive self begins longing to escape the city.  That's what the river in this book symbolizes: escape. The river that runs through the town flows right through only passage out of the city, therefore "escaping" it.  In the same way, Jonas plans and succeeds in secretly leaving the city without anyone but the giver's consent, and he escapes the town with a newborn he had wanted to save from being "released" (as the book describes it), or killed. To convey the symbolism of the river, I chose a picture of a little boy escaping a small and confined space.  This picture is also conveys the symbol in the book  in that the expression on the little boy's face suggests awe or excitement.  Likewise, Jonas has no idea what is waiting for him in the outside world, and once he finally does escape on the couple final pages of the book, it implies that he is fascinated by the world that has been awaiting him.