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Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
The Ghost Estate
The “ghost estate,” the abandoned housing estate behind Marianne and Connell’s high school, is a multilayered symbol of the chasm between Marianne and Connell’s social standings. Connell and his friends regularly go drinking at the abandoned estate, but Marianne isn’t even aware of its existence, never having been invited to any gatherings hosted by her popular classmates. When Connell does take Marianne to the ghost estate, he first makes sure there isn’t anyone around who might see them together, which shows that he is transgressing the social order by bringing Marianne there. Marianne’s discovery that the ghost estate is filthy and sordid on the inside despite appearing grand on the outside illustrates the superficiality and hollowness of Connell’s high school social connections with people other than her. It also foreshadows repeated instances throughout Normal People of the revelation that what may seem socially desirable from the outside is in fact only an insubstantial facade.
Marianne’s Cigarette
The smoking habit that Marianne picks up while at university symbolizes the distance that has grown between her and Connell since their first falling out when he invited Rachel Moran to the Debs. Though Connell and Marianne both attend Trinity College, they don’t encounter one another there until Connell goes to a party hosted by his acquaintance Gareth, who coincidentally turns out to be Marianne’s boyfriend. In addition to Connell’s surprise at being introduced to Marianne as Gareth’s girlfriend, he is also surprised to see Marianne smoking a cigarette. Marianne doesn’t answer when Connell asks her when she started smoking, instead allowing the cigarette to remain unexplained, a concrete representation of Marianne’s ability to change in Connell’s absence and without his knowledge.
Connell’s Emails to Marianne
The emails that Connell writes Marianne while he’s backpacking around Europe represent not only the power of his connection with her, but also that connection’s ability to inspire Connell to grow. Though Connell is majoring in English and abstractly interested in writing fiction, it is in his emails to Marianne that he blossoms as a writer. He treats his lengthy missives to her as opportunities to hone his craft, even going so far as to start drafting them in spare moments and going through multiple revisions before sending them off. Marianne and Connell aren’t physically together while Connell is traveling, and Connell is in what he considers a healthy relationship with Helen, but his creative inner life remains fraught.
The Counseling Intake Questionnaire
The questionnaire that Connell completes as a prerequisite for seeing one of Trinity College’s mental health counselors symbolizes the alienation Connell, Marianne, and their peers feel from the institutions that are supposed to support them. The topics of mental health and mental illness appear repeatedly throughout Normal People, but Connell’s appointment with a counselor marks the first time a character actually seeks professional treatment, and the intake questionnaire gives a hint as to why. Connell’s depression and anxiety are depicted as deeply personal and intertwined with his own unique experience of the world, as are the undiagnosed mental health issues of other characters, including Marianne’s eating disorder. The cold, clinical questions Connell must answer as part of seeking treatment represent bureaucracy and institutions in general, since they flatten his experience and discourage him.
