Bible of generations of clever and misunderstood teenage girls, Plath’s coming-of-age novel seems to affirm a connection between madness and creativity. Esther Greenwood, taking an English degree at an elite women’s college not unlike Plath’s, sees a rapidly approaching choice between marriage and a literary career. Unable to commit to either, her actions become increasingly chaotic until she attempts suicide and is admitted first to a state hospital and then, following the intervention of the novelist who funds her university scholarship, to a private institution where she is kindly treated by female doctors and nurses. This hospital becomes the complement to Esther’s college education, a place where she can learn possible modes of survival for an intelligent woman in 1950s America.