“The room was in a glow of golden light; no ladylike antidote, however strong, could lead one to ignore it. It was radiant, bold, unapologetic, unabashed. It was not the room that my ideal woman would have created. My ideal woman would unfailingly choose a nice tone of grey-blue. Certain suspicions which I had harboured that Clara Haydon was my ideal woman grew stronger as I watched her quiet English face bent over the tea-tray. I liked the straightforward look of the girl, her blue eyes and fair complexion. If I was to give up my liberty, the reins should be handed over to a kind, sensible young woman like Clara, who would hate to make herself remarkable, or her drawing-room yellow.” (Caird 104).
The narrator (presumably a man) describes the yellow drawing-room using the following description words: “It was radiant, bold, unapologetic, unabashed. It was not…” (Caird 104) Meaning, that the narrator does not use these noteworthy adjectives when illustrating his ‘ideal woman’ and his expectations for her, providing a stark contrast from a traditional ‘ladylike’ outlook. The yellow room represents a beak from conventional female autonomy, symbolizing the need for female autonomic independence, rights, and expression. The “grey-blue” color that the narrator prefers, doesn’t stand out or present the striking qualities in the analysis above. Therefore, the yellow room serves as a challenge to the norms of femininity in Victorian society.
The narrator’s selection of “a nice tone of grey-blue,” (Caird 104) as the ideal color for a woman’s drawing-room suggests his masculinized lens as to how a woman should behave in Victorian society. This is particularly relevant in the illustration of Clara Haydon, perceiving her as passive, submissive, and an idealized style of beauty. The keywords in the passage above connotate with the following claim: “quiet English face, … straightforward look, and blue eyes and fair complexion.” (Caird 104). Furthermore, this emphasizes the yellow room as a woman who does not rebel against constricting social and societal norms. With this description, Clara is perceived as an “Angel in the house,” (Victorian Web 2) and a limitation of women’s independence and self-autonomy in the domestic sphere, marriage, and confining middle-class wives in the home.