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Normal People tells the story of two young people, Marianne and Connell, and how their relationship affects and transforms each of them as they transition into young adulthood. Marianne and Connell begin the narrative as acquaintances in their mutual hometown of Carricklea, a small town in Sligo, Ireland, where Connell is popular despite his working-class background and Marianne is an outcast despite her family’s ostentatious wealth. Even before Marianne and Connell begin their sexual relationship, there is unspoken tension between them because Connell’s mother works as Marianne’s family’s housekeeper. This allows the two of them to be on more even ground than they otherwise would have been, because both Connell and Marianne have their respective advantages and disadvantages. However, Connell’s popularity among their high school peers emerges as the most valuable social currency in their relationship, and when Marianne makes the submissive offer to keep their sexual relationship a secret, Connell latches onto her suggestion as a way of consummating his attraction to Marianne while publicly avoiding her to maintain his reputation. Connell’s initial repulsion toward his own desire for Marianne and his cowardice in the face of social pressure soon have a devastating effect on their relationship.
When Connell chooses to invite Rachel Moran, the most popular girl in school, to the Debs dance over Marianne, Marianne is humiliated and stops attending school, which demonstrates the depth of her feelings for Connell despite her ostensible nonchalance around their relationship. This incident, Connell and Marianne’s first breakup, also reveals how Connell allows his passive tendencies to control him even though he knows he is treating Marianne poorly and cares for her a great deal. His mother, Lorraine, takes him to task for hurting Marianne, playing the voice of reason and offering a contrasting viewpoint to counter the overwhelmingly negative opinions of Marianne that Connell has encountered. Because of Lorraine’s position in Normal People as rational and compassionate, particularly compared to Marianne’s cold and abusive mother, her high opinion of Marianne also reflects poorly on the rest of Carricklea. Lorraine’s ability to see through malicious gossip and rumors indicates how easily everyone else in Marianne and Connell’s community is swayed by popular opinion, a pattern that continues even after Marianne and Connell leave their small town for Dublin.
While Marianne takes the opportunity of her new surroundings at Trinity College to change how she presents herself, Connell struggles with the task of making an impression at all, because he relied on others to define his personality and identity while in high school. Marianne fits in more easily with her new peers than Connell does, in part because her socioeconomic status means she has more in common with the majority of Trinity students. However, with the exception of her friend Joanna, Marianne’s college friends are superficial and belittle her, reflecting Marianne’s continued belief that she is unworthy of love and kindness. Her opinion of herself gets worse when most of her friends abandon her following her breakup with the abusive Jamie, not because of their abandonment, but because she realizes they were bad people all along. Marianne interprets this as a negative reflection on her judgment and a confirmation that she is no less shallow than other people, which leads to her continued lack of compassion for herself and another abusive relationship.
The separate romantic relationships that Marianne and Connell each pursue during university act as foils for their relationship with each other, which they rekindle whenever they’re otherwise unattached. Marianne’s most serious college relationship is with the rich, arrogant, bigoted, and abusive Jamie, while Connell’s is with Helen, a pleasant but judgmental medical student with whom Connell is proud to be seen in public. Jamie and Connell are opposites in almost every way, and Helen and Marianne are also noticeably different, both in terms of their personalities and in terms of how Connell feels about them. Connell gets pleasure from Marianne in private, either during sex with her or during conversations about the interests they share that others don’t understand. With Helen, on the other hand, he enjoys the aspects of his relationship with her that intersect with other people, like time with her family and seeing her with her friends while on video calls. Despite Connell’s appreciation for these outwardly normal trappings of a relationship, his inability to stop desiring Marianne and unwillingness to join in Joanna’s criticisms of Marianne lead to their breakup. Even when they are not together, Connell and Marianne influence one another’s separate romantic lives in ways that draw them repeatedly back into a relationship.
Marianne’s repeated pursuit of men who treat her poorly illustrates the influence of her abusive older brother, Alan, with whom her sexual partners (with the exception of Connell) have a great deal in common. Over the course of Normal People, Alan functions as a menacing presence who corners Marianne whenever she’s at home and targets her with emotional and physical abuse, insulting her in ways that mirror her innermost fear that she is fundamentally worthless and unlovable. The novel’s climax, when it becomes clear that Connell has grown into someone able to take action and show Marianne that he loves her, is triggered by Alan’s final act of physical violence against Marianne. In breaking Marianne’s nose, Alan, the personification of Marianne’s self-hatred, forces Connell to choose to defend Marianne in a dramatic and decisive moment that determines the course of their relationship going forward. Though Connell and Marianne may not stay together romantically indefinitely, there is no longer any doubt that Connell will demonstrate his love for Marianne, which will help her chip away at her negative beliefs about herself.
In the last moments of Normal People, Connell and Marianne have yet another miscommunication about the possibility of Connell having romantic feelings for another woman, which shows that even as their relationship is more settled than it has ever been, they continue to play into similarly negative patterns with each other. However, on the cusp of Connell’s possible departure to New York, Marianne feels stable and secure in herself for the first time in her life, which demonstrates the growth she has experienced thanks to her relationship with Connell. As for Connell, he has grown into someone who isn’t afraid to stand up for someone he loves, regardless of social ramifications, and his newfound passion for writing is propelling him into his next phase of life. Even if Connell and Marianne’s relationship itself ends on an inconclusive note, with Connell’s potential departure to New York and their persistent miscommunications, it has inarguably changed both Connell and Marianne for the better.
