The Marriage Plot

“Presently, Billy had one hand sensitively in the back pocket of Madeleine’s jeans. She had her hand in the back pocket of his jeans. They were moving along like that, each cupping a handful of the other. In Madeleine’s face was a stupidity Mitchell had never seen before. It was the stupidity of all normal people. It was the stupidity of the fortunate and the beautiful, of everybody who got what they wanted in life and so remained unremarkable.”

Mitchell believes that he is privy to insight into Madeleine that she herself lacks: that the fling she is having with Billy is not truly love and that Billy’s presence in her life serves only to keep Madeleine from fulfilling her higher potential. Mitchell’s thoughts reveal his self-absorption and his tendency to conflate true love with religious enlightenment.

“What Madeleine was seeking here, with Thurston, wasn’t Thurston at all. It was self-abasement. She wanted to demean herself, and she’d done so, though she wasn’t clear on why, except that it had to do with Leonard and how much she was suffering.”

Though Madeleine attempts to have sex with Thurston, she recognizes that she does not do so out of any sexual attraction to Thurston himself. Later, after her marriage to Leonard, she will have sex with Mitchell for a similar reason.

“Leonard’s dark moods had always been part of his appeal. It was a relief to hear him enumerate his frailties, his misgivings about the American formula for success. So many people in college were jacked up on ambition, possessors of steroidal egos, clever but cutthroat, diligent but insensitive, shiny but dull, that everyone felt compelled to be upbeat, down with the program, all systems firing, when everyone knew, in his or her heart, that this wasn’t how they really felt. People doubted themselves and feared the future. They were intimidated, scared, and so talking to Leonard, who was all these things times ten, made people feel less bad about themselves.”

The manic state that Leonard enters as graduation approaches has the effect of making those around him aware of (and grateful for) their own mental stability. Leonard unwittingly becomes a marker by which others measure their own mental health. Only Madeleine is not reassured by this contrast, desperate only to help Leonard achieve stasis.

“Madeleine had never been close to anyone with a verifiable mental illness. She instinctively avoided unstable people. As uncharitable as this attitude was, it was part and parcel of being a Hanna, of being a positive, privileged, sheltered, exemplary person. If there was one thing Madeleine Hanna was not, it was mentally unstable. That had been the script, anyway. But sometime after finding Billy Bainbridge in bed with two women, Madeleine had become aware of the capacity in herself for a helpless sadness not unlike clinical depression. […] Madeleine recognized that she and a mentally ill person were not necessarily mutually exclusive categories.”

When Madeleine arrives at Brown, her identity is her family’s identity, synonymous with success and positivity. Her romantic life is a terrain for identity formation, as her experiences of love and heartbreak have taught her that she is more than she has been taught to be.

“‘I sabotaged you and me,’ Leonard said. I see that now. I’m able to think a little more clearly now. Part of growing up in the kind of family I come from, a family of alcoholics, is that you begin to normalize disease and dysfunctionality. Disease and dysfunctionality are normal for me […] Remember that day that you said you loved me? Remember that? See, you could do that because you’re basically a sane person, who grew up in a loving, sane family. You could take a risk like that. But in my family we didn’t go around saying we loved each other. We went around screaming at each other. So what do I do, when you say you love me? I go and undermine it? I go and reject it by throwing Roland Barthes in your face.”

After he is hospitalized, Leonard is able to rationally assess the role he played in ending his relationship with Madeleine and the psychological factors at work. Because he is unaccustomed to having things go well in his life, he becomes wary when he enters a loving relationship.

“Leonard leaned closer.

‘Once the first avowal has been made,’ he said, quoting Barthes from memory, ‘“I love you” has no meaning whatever.’

Madeleine frowned. ‘Are you going to start that again?’

‘No, but—think about it. That means the first avowal does have meaning.’”

Leonard references Roland Barthes as a way of both apologizing to Madeleine for failing to respond to her declaration of love and telling her that he loves her too. That Leonard can only speak of love in theoretical terms indicates how far removed he feels from the reality of it at times.

“It was possible, of course, that some of the anger Mitchell felt at Claire was misdirected. It was possible that the female he was really mad at was Madeleine. All summer long, while Mitchell had been in Detroit, he’d been under the illusion that Madeleine was available again. The thought that Bankhead had been dumped, and was suffering, had never failed to lift Mitchell’s spirits. He’d even rationalized that it had been a good thing that Madeleine had gone out with Bankhead. She needed to get guys like him out of her system. She needed to grow up, as Mitchell did, too, before they could be together.”

Mitchell is steadfast in his certainty that, eventually, he and Madeleine will be together. Though she has rejected him in the past, he blames these rejections on a lack of insight and clarity on Madeleine’s part. His belief in The Illusion of Romantic Destiny mirrors a common narrative structure in literary romance. In the romance novel, as in the bildungsroman, the destined lovers must grow up before they are ready for one another, precisely as Mitchell describes here.

“The more Mitchell read about religions, the world religions in general and Christianity in particular, the more he realized that the mystics were all saying the same thing. Enlightenment came from the extinction of desire. Desire didn’t bring fulfillment but only temporary satiety until the next temptation came along. And that was only if you were lucky enough to get what you wanted. If you didn’t, you spent your life in unrequited longing.

How long had he been secretly hoping to marry Madeleine Hanna? And how much of his desire to marry Madeleine came from really and truly liking her as a person, and how much from the wish to possess her and, in doing so, gratify his ego?”

Here, Mitchell considers, for the first time, that his unwillingness to give up on a future relationship with Madeleine may be preventing him from achieving the religious enlightenment he is seeking. However, Mitchell will not truly and fully believe that Madeleine is not intended for him until he has a meaningful talk with Leonard about the very topic of enlightenment.

“On the train back to Rhode Island, Madeleine began to suffer pangs of remorse. She decided that she had to tell Leonard what had happened, but by the time the train reached Providence, she realized that this would only make things worse. Leonard would think that he was losing her because of his illness. He would feel sexually inadequate, and he wouldn’t be wrong, exactly. Mitchell was gone, out of the country, and soon Madeleine and Leonard would be moving to Pilgrim Lake. With that in mind, Madeline refrained from confessing. She threw herself back into the task of loving and caring for Leonard, and after a while the experience of kissing Mitchell that night began to seem as though it has taken place in an alternate reality, dreamlike and ephemeral.”

Madeleine kisses Mitchell for the same reason she kissed Thurston the first time her relationship with Leonard ended: She is trying to cleanse herself of Leonard. Here, kissing Mitchell serves as a subconscious way to begin her relationship with Leonard anew—to prove to herself that she truly has feelings for him alone and not for Mitchell.

“Madeleine listened to her sister sympathetically. She understood that Alwyn’s complaints about her marriage were complaints about men and marriage in general. But, like anyone in love, Madeleine believed that her own relationship was different from every other relationship, immune from typical problems. For this reason, the chief effect of Alwyn’s words was to make Madeleine secretly and intensely happy.”

Madeleine spends much of the novel resisting the traditional mode of marriage only to rather quickly find herself in a conventional marriage in which she is the caretaker of her husband’s feelings and health. She does not see the irony present in the dynamic between herself and Leonard. Instead, because he is so unlike many other guys she has dated, she is certain that their marriage will be unlike everyone else’s.

“They refilled their wine glasses. Larry was in a good mood. The speed with which he’d gotten over Claire was stunning. Maybe he hadn’t liked Claire all that much. Maybe he disliked Claire as much as Mitchell did. The fact that Larry could get over Claire in a matter of weeks, whereas Mitchell remained heartbroken over Madeleine—even though he hadn’t gone out with Madeleine—meant one of two things: either Mitchell’s love for Madeleine was pure and true and earthshakingly significant; or he was addicted to feeling forlorn, he liked being heartbroken, and the ‘emotion’ he felt for Madeleine—somewhat increased by the flowing chianti—was only a perverted form of self-love. Not love at all, in other words.”

Mitchell constantly wavers between opposite poles of a dichotomy in many aspects of his life. Here, again, he returns to the possibility that he is intentionally wallowing in his heartbroken state, refusing to “get over” Madeleine. This sentiment is one that Madeleine herself will often consider in regard to her own heartbroken state over Leonard.

“Of course, as love letters went, this one could have been better. It was not very promising, for instance, that Madeleine claimed not to want to see him for the next half-century. It was dispiriting that she had insisted that she was ‘serious’ about her ‘boyfriend’ (though cheering that they were having ‘problems’). Mostly, what Mitchell took from the letter was the painful fact that he had missed his chance. His chance with Madeleine had come early, sophomore year, and he’d failed to seize it. This further depressed him because it suggested that he was destined to be a voyeur in life, an also-ran, a loser. It was just as Madeleine said: he wasn’t man enough for her.”

At times, Mitchell has convinced himself that he is not good enough for Madeleine and that her being “out of his league” is what has kept them apart. At other times, he is certain that they are destined to be together and that this destiny will eventually come to fruition. Here, though, he loses all hope of Madeleine falling in love with him as his worst fear about himself is articulated by Madeleine herself.

“The logic of [Leonard’s] brilliant move rested on one premise: that manic depression, far from being a liability, was an advantage. It was a selected trait. If it wasn’t selected for, then the ‘disorder’ would have disappeared long ago, bred out of the population like anything else that didn’t increase the odds of survival. The advantage was obvious. The advantage was the energy, the creativity, the feeling of genius, almost, that Leonard felt right now. There was no telling how many great historical figures had been manic-depressive, how many scientific and artistic breakthroughs had occurred to people during manic episodes.”

On the verge of a manic state, Leonard convinces himself that this state is far more desirable than the effects of the drug meant to treat him. Ironically, it is his illness that leads him to believe that his illness is a boon.

“Mitchell’s concern that he wasn’t coming up to the mark, at Kalighat coexisted, oddly enough, with a surge of real religious feeling on his part. Much of the time in Calcutta he was filled with an ecstatic tranquility, like a low-grade fever. His meditation practice had deepened. He experienced plunging sensations, as if moving at great speed. For whole minutes he forgot who he was. Outside in the streets, he tried, and often succeeded, in disappearing to himself in order to be, paradoxically, more present.”

Throughout his time in India, Mitchell wavers between two extremes: feeling that his efforts and contributions to the world are meaningless and feeling an extreme sense of spiritual wholeness. What accounts for the latter is not fully clear to him, but he regards India as a source of potential enlightenment because of his mere proximity to Mother Theresa, as if being physically closer to her will imbue him with greater altruism.

“Mitchell leaned out of his seat to look down at the water. If he fell out of the rickshaw now, he would plunge straight down hundreds of feet. No one would ever know.

But he didn’t fall. Mitchell remained upright in the rickshaw, carried along like a sahib. He planned to give the rickshaw wallah an enormous tip when they reached the station. A week’s salary at least. Meanwhile, he enjoyed the read. He felt ecstatic. He was being carried away, a vessel in a vessel. He understood the Jesus prayer now. Understood mercy. Understood sinner, for sure. As he passed over the bridge, Mitchell’s lips weren’t moving. He wasn’t thinking a thing. It was as if, just as Franny had promised, the prayer had taken over and was saying itself in his heart.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

After walking out of the hospital for the dying in the middle of his shift, Mitchell experiences freedom from his fixation on his lack of altruism. Accepting that he is not equipped to deal with the ugly aspects of dying and care, he feels free. The moment of understanding that he has here is akin and parallel to the one that Leonard will have in Europe, which will ultimately cause Mitchell to no longer hate Leonard.

“Part of [Madeleine’s] anger had to do with Phyllida’s close-mindedness. Another part had to do with the fear that she might be right. A long, hot summer with Leonard in his un-air conditioned apartment, followed by two months in their unit at Pilgrim Lake, had given Madeleine a good idea of what it would be like to be ‘married to manic depression.’ […] Madeleine began to feel suffocated. It was as if Leonard had brought his hot, stuffy little studio apartment with him, as though that was where he lived, emotionally, and anyone who wanted to be with him had to squeeze into that hot psychic space too. It was as if, in order to love Leonard fully, Madeleine had to wander into the same dark forest where he was lost.

There comes a moment, when you get lost in the woods, when the woods begin to feel like home. The further Leonard receded from other people, the more he relied on Madeleine, and the more he relied on her, the deeper she was willing to follow.”

The analogy of the forest that Madeleine employs explains the commitment that she has made to help Leonard through his mental illness and illustrates how severely this commitment has impacted her. Ultimately, Leonard’s insistence on ending their marriage will prove beneficial to Madeleine.

“The experience of watching Leonard get better was like reading certain difficult books. It was like plowing through late James, or the pages about agrarian reform in Anna Karenina, until you suddenly got to a good part again, which kept on getting better and better until you were so enthralled that you were almost grateful for the previous dull stretch because it increased your eventual pleasure.”

Madeleine’s analogy is a fitting one, as literature is the focus of her academic pursuits. She illustrates here how the moments when Leonard is happy are magnified by the extreme lows he feels—in this way, Madeleine’s description parallels that of Leonard’s manic states: His exuberant manic states are much more desirable to him largely because he must first suffer through such extreme lows.

“The temptation to ignore the previous night was great. But Madeleine didn’t want to set a bad precedent. The weight of marriage pressed down on her for the first time. She couldn’t just throw a book at Leonard and leave, as she’d done in the past.”

Here, Madeleine understands that the commitment she has made to Leonard in marrying him makes their relationship more significant and complicated than a mere college romance. It is likely that Madeleine, upon agreeing to marry Leonard, did not understand the gravity of committing to him in that moment. As she comes to see just how serious his mental illness is, she recognizes the importance of the commitment she has made to him.

“Seeing him like this, wild-eyed, antiquely dressed, as slick-haired as a vampire, Madeleine realized that she’d never accepted—had never taken fully on board—the reality of Leonard’s illness. In the hospital, when Leonard was recovering from his breakdown, his behavior had been peculiar but understandable. He was like someone dazed after a car crash. This—this mania—was different. Leonard seemed like an actual crazy person, and it scared her senseless.”

Prior to their marriage, Madeleine was unable to recognize when Leonard was experiencing a manic state. At that time, she relished his good mood and upbeat nature. This time, however, it is evident to Madeleine that Leonard’s manic states are dangerous. The gradual realization that Leonard is not the person she believed him to be is a painful one.

“She reached out and put her hands around [Leonard’s] neck. She’d been so happy only a little while ago, feeling that their life was finally turning around. But now it all seemed like a cruel joke, the apartment, Columbia, everything. They stood at the subway entrance, one of those hugging, crying couples in New York, ignored by everyone passing by, granted perfect primacy in the middle of a teeming city on a hot summer night. Madeleine said nothing because she didn’t know what to say. Even ‘I love you’ seemed inadequate. She’d said this to Leonard so many times in situations like this that she was worried it was losing its power. But she should have said it, anyway.”

Madeleine’s resistance to saying “I love you” to Leonard here parallels the moment back in Leonard’s apartment when he could not speak the same words and, instead, pointed to them in a book. Madeleine feels that Leonard’s awareness that she loves him is not enough to heal him from his mental illness—a realization that she has come to slowly and painfully.

“[Mitchell] despised himself. He decided that his believing that Madeleine would marry him stemmed from the same credulity that had led him to think he could live a saintly life, tending the sick and dying in Calcutta. It was the same credulity that made him recite the Jesus prayer, and wear a cross, and think that he could stop Madeleine from marrying Bankhead by sending a letter.”

As he spends more time face-to-face with Madeleine, Mitchell ironically falls out of love with her. It is as though the unrequited nature of his love for her was more fulfilling than actually obtaining her love. He continues to berate himself, however, for his lack of spiritual enlightenment—a factor that will change at the very end of the novel.

“The conversation changed Mitchell’s attitude toward Bankhead. He was no longer able to hate him. The part of Mitchell that would have rejoiced in Bankhead’s collapse was no longer operative. Throughout the conversation, Mitchell experienced what so many people had before him, the immensely satisfying embrace of Bankhead’s intelligent and complete attention. Mitchell felt that, under other circumstances, he and Leonard Bankhead might have been the best of friends. He understood why Madeleine had fallen in love with him, and why she’d married him.”

Leonard’s confession to Mitchell about his religious experience has a great impact on Mitchell, though Leonard likely doesn’t intend for it to do so nor realize that it will. Because Mitchell himself has been so consumed by having the kind of enlightened experience that Leonard describes, Mitchell, for the first time, identifies with Leonard and empathizes with him. The understanding about Leonard that he reaches is instrumental in Mitchell finally releasing himself from his unrequited love for Madeleine.

“A still, small voice was speaking to [Mitchell], but it was saying things he didn’t want to hear. Suddenly, as if he was truly in touch with his Deep Self and could view his situation objectively, Mitchell understood why making love with Madeleine had felt as strangely empty as it had. It was because Madeleine hadn’t been coming to him; she’d only been leaving Bankhead. After opposing her parents all summer, Madeleine was giving in to the necessity of an annulment. In order to make that clear to herself, she’d come up to Mitchell’s bedroom in the attic.

He was her survival kit.”

Mitchell has something akin to a spiritual or religious insight as he realizes that he and Madeleine are not, in fact, destined to be together. Instead of being painful, however, this truth becomes freeing.