When the narrator tears apart the wallpaper, she is symbolically breaking free of societal restraints. The second option is correct.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" is a short story written by American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine. It is considered as an important early work of American feminist literature, due to its depiction of the attitudes towards mental and physical health of women in the 19th century.
