The story of "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins is one of the most famous accounts of madness in 19th century literature; taking the form of the diary of a woman who is receiving treatment for a mental illness. Through the diary, he records his experiences and mental life as he descends into what appears to be complete madness. Perkins wishes to highlight both the singular experience of mental illness and the ways in which this condition is manipulated and exacerbated by those around it. I will argue that it is possible to see the story as having a critical attitude towards contemporary social and gender relations than Perkins' vision of androcentrism. Perkins stated that he wrote the story after a period of burial from mental illness, and that he managed to recover from this illness only after ignoring his doctor's advice: "Using the remnants of intelligence that remained in me, and aided by a wise friend, I threw the well-known specialist's advice to the wind and got to work again...in the end I recovered a certain measure of power." (Perkins, 2009. 300) From the beginning of the story, Perkins describes an erratic relationship between her narrator and her husband. The latter is a person of standing and has a very respectable social position. He is then placed in a position of authority. This is made clear in the lines: “You see, he doesn't believe that I am ill!...If a high-ranking doctor...assures friends and relatives that in reality there is nothing but a temporary nervous depression -- a slight hysterical tendency: what should be done? (Perkins, 2013. 76) From the beginning of the story, Perkins places the narrator in a position where she is surrounded by male authority figures who deny… middle of paper… her treatment will seek to assert her own opinions with a greater and more direct force. In conclusion, 'Yellow Wallpaper' presents a situation in which its narrator is subject to a rationalist logic that does not belong to her and is incapable of responding to her needs. The result of this is the exacerbation of her madness as she projects the life absent from her social relationships onto the inanimate objects around her. In all of this, her husband and his friends represent both the reaction and the cause of this behavior. Works Cited Perkins, Charlotte. Literature "The Yellow Wallpaper": a portable anthology. Eds. Janet E. Gardner, Beverly Lawn, Jack Ridl and Peter Schakel. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2013. 76-89. Print.- "Why did I write the yellow background." The yellow wallpaper and other stories. Oxford: Oxford World Classics, 2009. 331-332. Press.