The marriage plot

The so-called “marriage plot” is the leitmotif of Victorian novels, from which the protagonist Madelaine intends to write her final thesis. But it is also an important motif in her life – two peers, also students, the intelligent Leonard and the spirited Mitchell, are competing for her. The story follows all three characters through the most dramatic period of their transition to adulthood, set in the early 1980s. Just as the problem of hermaphroditism is well portrayed in Middlesex, The Marriage Plot shows what it is like to live with bipolar disorder and how it is experienced by the surroundings.