The sanatorium

The sanatorium Dunbar is forced to stay at is symbolic of his powerlessness and paralysis at the hands of his oldest daughters. It is a place of madness, and numbness, and death, if one does not escape. It is also symbolic of the negative attitude of mainstream society toward the aging.

The diseased body

The diseased body is symbolic of corruption, betrayal, and that which is unnatural. The sick body represents sickness but also something that has been polluted by outside forces. Dunbar, who has been betrayed by his own flesh, sees disease and a suffering human anatomy when he looks at the stretches branches of the trees because in a way, it is his own body that has been betrayed. His flesh and blood, his own daughters, have turned on him. Florence is literally poisoned by her sisters, her own blood. In this way...