How does the use of irony affect your understanding of "The Yellow Wallpaper"?

There is considerable irony in the fact that the advice from the narrator’s husband and brother - both physicians, is what drives her into madness. The supposed ‘rest cure’ was often prescribed to women who were seen as overwrought. It was, as Charlotte Perkins Gilman believed, also a tool to subdue the more intelligent, creative and artistic leanings of women who could be a challenge to their husbands and patriarchal society.

One irony of Charlotte Perkins's disturbing story is the fact that if the narrator were empowered to choose her means of recovery, then she probably would have cured herself, rather than having fallen victim to terrible repression and later to what one critic calls "the seduction of insanity." Her nervous condition worsens because neither the husband, who is a physician nor the attending doctor understands her sensitive and artistic nature.