The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides

Characters and Locations
Brown University	Pilgrim Lake Laboratory	Europe	Prettybrook, NJ
Madeleine Hanna Parents: Alton and Phyllida Sister: Alwyn Leonard Bankhead Parents: Rita and Frank Sister: Janet Mitchell Grammaticus Abby and Olivia – Madeleine’s roommates Semiotics 211 - Prof.  Michael Zipperstein	Madeleine and Leonard Diane MacGregor – Nobel Prize for Physiology Vikram Jaitly & Carl Beller – other 2 research fellows Phyllida and Alwyn visit	Mitchell Larry – traveling companion Claire – Larry’s girlfriend in Paris Calcutta: Home for Dying Destitutes Salvation Army Guest House Madeleine and Leonard on honeymoon – Leonard hospitalized in Monaco Phyllida came to help	Madeleine and Leonard living with her parents Mitchell Alton and Phyllida
Semiotics:  The theory and study of signs and symbols, especially as elements of language and other forms of communication.

 

Books listed in novel
Semiotics 211	Madeleine	Mitchell	Leonard
Balzac - Sarrasine Barthes Jonathan Culler – On Deconstruction Derrida – Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference Umberto Eco The Role of the Reader Peter Handke – A Sorrow Beyond Dreams Zipperstein – The Making of Signs (fictional book)	Books for research paper: Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility Dreiser – Sister Carrie George Eliot – Middlemarch Henry James – Portrait of a Lady Private selections: Barthes – A Lover’s Discourse (book thrown at Leonard) Powell – A Dance to the Music of Time (read on train going home for Thanksgiving) Read at home: Bemelman – Madeline James Fennimore Cooper Colette novels Longfellow – Hiawatha Madeleine would stop and read for awhile in parents’ library “to make the sad old books feel better.”	Private selections: Meister Eckhart Kempis - The Imitation of Christ Thomas Merton Ira Progoff – The Cloud of Unknowing Books taken to Europe: The Cloud of Unknowing The Imitation of Christ The Confessions of St. Augustine Sister Teresa – Interior Castle Merton – Dark Night of the Soul Tolstoy – A Confession and Other Religious Writings Pynchon – V God Biology: Toward a Theistic Understanding of Evolution Hemingway – A Moveable Feast Mother Teresa – Something Beautiful for God Charles Colson – Born Again (bought with parent’s credit card)	Read in high school: Stephen Jay Gould – Ontogeny and Phylogeny Ever Since Darwin

 For Discussion:

NOTE:  All pages refer to the hardback edition.

1.            When Leonard was first in the hospital during graduation, his friend warns Madeleine not to get involved with Leonard.  He states that he is, “Just someone who knows from personal experience, how attractive is can be to think you can save someone else by loving them.”  (page 123)  Was this good advice?  Why did Madeleine not even think of heeding it?

2.            Leonard’s parents bought the house where the murder had occurred because it was cheap.    Would you live in a house where a murder had occurred?

3.            Did the description of Leonard’s disease (starting on page 233) give you some insights into mental disease?  If so, what?   Do you think Leonard could or should have done anything differently?  What do you think will happen to Leonard in the end?

4.            Discuss Leonard’s family and their influence on Leonard and their reaction to his illness.

5.            Discuss Mitchell’s quest for religious understanding.  Do you think he was or will be successful?

6.            Did you understand Semiotics?  Is it important to the book?

7.            Discuss the relationship between the reader and the writer.  Madeleine felt that the semiotic theorists thought the reader was the more important of the two while she wanted the writer to do more work than the reader.  (page 42)

8.            Consider the various couples in the novel and their relationship:

• Mitchell and Madeleine
• Leonard and Madeleine
• Leonard and Mitchell (meeting at the end of the novel)
• Mitchell and Larry

9.            What were the redeeming qualities of each character?  Did they have any negative characteristics?

10.          Did you like the ending of the book?

11.          What was the best part of the book?

12.          How does the title, The Marriage Plot, relate to the story?