What kind of verbal phrase is "waiting at the baggage claim area" in the following sentence?
Passengers can carry a small bag onto an airliner and avoid waiting at the baggage claim area.

as for symbolic actions, the narrator's tearing down the wallpaper in an attempt to find the "woman" in the wallpaper represents her struggle to retain or regain her sanity.   the wallpaper has been part of her confinement and by her tearing it down, she is freeing herself from that confinement.