Madness is the state of being mentally ill, especially severely. In the short stories “A Madman’s Diary” by Lu Xun, “Memoirs of a Madman” by Nikolai Gogol, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonists are driven by their surroundings. In “A Madman’s Diary” by Lu Xun the protagonists is driven by external factors during the beginning of the story , “...at the time they were not yet born, so why should they eye me so strangely today” (Xun). He thinks everyone is looking at him strangely like they want to murder him. It frightens him it is bewildering and upsetting. After the madman believes those around him are cannibals he thinks, “...although it came as a shock, is yet no more than I had expected the accomplice in
