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Miss Neary is the economics teacher at Connell and Marianne’s secondary school. Everyone in school jokes about how Connell wants to have sex with Miss Neary, but this joke upsets him. It’s true, though, that Miss Neary seems to flirt with him—even Marianne notices and tells Connell that she wouldn’t mind making an anonymous report on his behalf, but he tells her not to. When he comes back to Carricklea during college, he gets extremely drunk one night and encounters Miss Neary at a bar. She takes him home and tries to have sex with him despite his protests. He manages to avoid sleeping with her, but he still feels deeply uncomfortable about the entire experience. When he tells Marianne about it, she vows to kill Miss Neary if she ever does something like that to Connell again.
Miss Neary Quotes in Normal People
The Normal People quotes below are all either spoken by Miss Neary or refer to Miss Neary. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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1. January 2011 Quotes
Miss Neary teaches Economics. His supposed feelings for her are widely discussed in school. Some people are even saying that he tried to add her on Facebook, which he didn't and would never do. Actually he doesn't do or say anything to her, he just sits there quietly while she does and says things to him. She keeps him back after class sometimes to talk about his life direction, and once she actually touched the knot of his school tie. He can't tell people about the way she acts because they'll think he's trying to brag about it.
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What if, at some level above or below his own perception, he does actually desire her? He doesn't even really know what desire is supposed to feel like. Any time he has had sex in real life, he has found it so stressful as to be largely unpleasant, leading him to suspect that there's something wrong with him, that he's unable to be intimate with women, that he's somehow developmentally impaired.
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11. Six Weeks Later (September 2012) Quotes
Anyway, she says. How are you?
He knows the question is meant honestly. He's not someone who feels comfortable confiding in others, or demanding things from them. He needs Marianne for this reason. This fact strikes him newly. Marianne is someone he can ask things of. Even though there are certain difficulties and resentments in their relationship, the relationship carries on. This seems remarkable to him now, and almost moving.
Something kind of weird happened to me in the summer, he said. Can I tell you about it?
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Miss Neary Character Timeline in Normal People
The timeline below shows where the character Miss Neary appears in Normal People. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
1. January 2011
...hinting at something suggestive about their relationship? The conversation soon moves to their economics teacher, Miss Neary , whom everyone says Connell could sleep with if he wanted. Marianne makes a joke...
(full context)
Everyone in school talks about how Connell wants to sleep with Miss Neary . Some people even say that he tried to add her as a friend on...
(full context)
Even if Connell did want to sleep with Miss Neary , he wouldn’t even know what that kind of sexual desire feels like. Every time...
(full context)
Marianne offers to secretly report that Miss Neary acts inappropriately toward Connell. He’s horrified by this idea and tells her not to say...
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11. Six Weeks Later (September 2012)
...Mass for Marianne’s father in July, Connell had gone drinking with his friends and encountered Miss Neary , the economics teacher who’d always had a thing for him. He was extremely drunk...
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...if he genuinely “needs” her. Thinking this way, he starts to tell her about what Miss Neary did to him over the summer.
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12. Four Months Later (January 2013)
...themselves. She’s more than willing to help Connell—when he told her about what happened with Miss Neary over the summer, she was overwhelmed with rage. If Miss Neary ever tried something like...
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