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Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Influence of Social Class on Social Life
Marianne and Connell’s respective social positions, both in terms of broader socioeconomic class and the narrower, more subjective notion of popularity among peers, fluctuate and interact throughout Normal People. In high school, Marianne stands out because of her family’s affluence, but lacks social capital and is the target of bullying, rumors, and harassment. Connell, on the other hand, comes from a lower-class background that seemingly has no negative effect on his elevated social standing in school. However, while Marianne has no interest in attempting to increase her own popularity, Connell’s desperation to cling to his own social position leads him to keep his sexual relationship with Marianne a secret at her expense. Although Connell claims in a conversation with his mother never to have considered class as a reason for difficulties in his relationship with Marianne, the importance he grants to the opinions of his friends—many of whom he either dislikes or has lukewarm feelings about—illustrates how precarious his social gains are. Despite the abuse that Marianne suffers both from her classmates and from her family at home, she is secure in her social position in a way Connell’s background doesn’t allow him to be.
While Marianne and Connell attend university, their respective social classes begin to encroach on their social lives more directly than when they were in high school. Surrounded by a higher proportion of people from backgrounds similar to Marianne’s, Connell often finds that he is the odd one out among his wealthy peers, wearing the wrong thing and being teased by his girlfriend because of his hometown. Marianne, who has never needed to think about financial concerns, thrives socially at university at first, fitting in with the other students for whom money is merely a symbol, which the scholarship that both Marianne and Connell win exemplifies most explicitly. Their most pivotal breakup during college occurs as a direct result not of either of their social classes particularly, but because of the chasm between them. When Connell loses his job and says he’ll need to leave Dublin for the summer, Marianne immediately assumes he is prioritizing other women over her, rather than discreetly hinting that he needs a place to stay. This is the kind of miscommunication that not only characterizes Marianne and Connell’s ongoing relationship, but is also a direct reflection of how their respective socioeconomic statuses influence how they view social interaction. Marianne believes that if Connell wanted to stay with her, he would just ask, while Connell is shy and embarrassed about his financial need, a notion Marianne has never had to consider.
The Mutability of Identity
As they transition from high school to university to their next steps in life, Marianne and Connell learn that their experiences and relationships can shape the kinds of people they are. This is especially vital for Marianne to discover because she has incorporated so much of her family’s abuse into her sense of self. Marianne has extremely low self-esteem and a negative opinion of herself, both of which factor into her tendency to seek out friends and romantic partners who don’t respect her. Because of the constant onslaught of abuse from her mother and brother, Marianne believes that she is somehow rotten on the inside and that she is trapped in her “corrupted” personality, unable to change herself because she was born wrong and abnormal.
In contrast, Connell is broadly open to the idea that his identity can shift according to the people around him, and in fact views his personality as more of a mirror of other people’s perceptions of him. As a result, he tries to associate with people who bring out his best aspects, like Helen. He also shares with Marianne that he feels she has been able to change him into a better person. In Seven Months Later (February 2015), Marianne finally feels secure in her future, even if it turns out Connell leaves for graduate school in New York and they’re never able to share the same positive relationship they have spent the last several months building. She credits this newfound sense of security to Connell and her relationship with him, which shows that Connell has not only helped Marianne change for the better, but that he has also influenced her to accept the possibility that another person can change her.
Acceptable vs. Unacceptable Desire
Beginning with its first chapter, Normal People consistently depicts Marianne and Connell as being preoccupied with whether their desires are normal, in terms both of what they do want and what they don’t. Connell is concerned because his limited sexual experiences have been unpleasant and alienating and because Miss Neary’s advances during class leave him feeling nauseated. Marianne believes herself to be weird and different because she fantasizes not about having sex with Connell herself, but about watching him have sex with someone else. When they do begin sexual relationships with one another and later with different people, their preoccupations with the normalcy of their desire only deepen. Connell worries his attraction to Marianne makes him sexually deviant because she wasn’t conventionally attractive or popular in high school, while Marianne decides that her own increasing interest in sexual submission and abusive men must reflect something intrinsically repulsive and worthless about her. Later, Connell has a panic attack when he realizes that Marianne is so submissive to him that she would probably let him hit her, and the novel’s final sex scene is abruptly cut short when Marianne does ask Connell to hit her and he refuses. By Seven Months Later (February 2015), though, Marianne and Connell are able to have a harmonious sexual relationship that incorporates Marianne’s desire for Connell to dominate her in a healthy way that hurts neither party. This reveals the underlying message that between consenting adults, there are no intrinsically unacceptable desires, something Marianne and Connell help each other learn.
