Normal People is a novel about first love and the experience of opening up romantically to another person. Although there are factors working against them from the very beginning of their relationship, Connell and Marianne never seem to fully move on from their close bond. They start seeing each other in secondary school, but Connell insists on keeping the relationship a secret because Marianne is widely disliked. His unwillingness to publicly acknowledge his feelings for her is selfish and unfair, but it also comes from a place of insecurity. Despite his popularity, he’s very self-conscious and has trouble showing people who he really is—except, that is, for Marianne, who helps him feel good about himself. Similarly, Connell is kind to Marianne (in private) and shows interest in her as a person, and this gives her a sense of acceptance that her life otherwise lacks. Their entire relationship is therefore founded on an intimate form of emotional support, as each of them allows the other to be vulnerable and open about who they are. As a result, there’s a comforting quality to their relationship, which is why their romantic connection lasts all the way through college and even persists when they’re dating other people. But the enduring quality of their emotional attachment doesn’t necessarily mean their relationship is thriving or even all that healthy—it just means they’ve formed an intimacy that’s hard to let go of, ultimately illustrating how powerful it can be for people to make themselves vulnerable to someone else for the first time.
There’s an intensity to Marianne and Connell’s relationship, perhaps because the depth and strength of their connection is unlike anything they’ve experienced before in their lives. They are, after all, fairly young when they first get together, so the emotionally dense nature of their relationship feels especially all-consuming. Marianne is particularly inexperienced when it comes to romance, since she has never dated anyone. Worse, she doesn’t even have any friends, so there’s nobody in her life she can relate to. Connell, on the other hand, has had several girlfriends, but none of his relationships have been serious. And though he’s popular in school, he doesn’t feel like any of his friends see him for who he really is, since they’re all solely interested in things like sports, sex, and gossip, whereas he’s a more sensitive and contemplative soul. He and Marianne, however, genuinely relate to each other on an emotional level and share an interest in things like literature. As they discover just how compatible they are, they forge a connection that runs much deeper than the average secondary-school relationship, largely because they provide each other with a sense of acceptance and belonging.
By opening up to each other so intensely, though, Marianne and Connell sometimes wade into emotional territory they’re not ready for. Sometimes they even seem surprised by their own emotional intimacy, as if they’re not used to letting people into their private lives. When, for instance, Marianne admits that her father used to hit her, Connell suddenly says that he loves her. It’s an impulsive response, and though he means it in the moment, he later wonders if it’s true. He has almost said that he loves Marianne before, but this is the first time he’s ever “given in and said it”—implying that he does, indeed, love her but has been actively keeping himself from articulating the feeling. And yet, the mere fact that he later wonders if what he said is true suggests that these moments of intense connection have an overwhelming power, making it hard for him to hold back his feelings like he normally does.
In many ways, the emotional intensity and vulnerability at the heart of Marianne and Connell’s relationship is what makes it so hard for them to move on from each other, even after years of heartbreak and frustration. Because of their history together, they learn to depend on each other as they move into adulthood. By the time they’re in college, Connell starts to worry about the implications of their intense connection, especially when he has the unsettling realization that Marianne would willingly let him hurt her just because she loves him so much. His troubling thought in this moment suggests that he knows on a certain level that there’s an unhealthy—and possibly even destructive—quality to their bond. In contrast, when he starts dating a young woman named Helen, he’s astounded by how easy and rewarding their connection feels. Their communication is open and honest, he’s happy when they’re together, and their relationship makes him feel like a “heavy lid has been lifted off his emotional life.” And yet, he doesn’t stay with Helen. Instead, he goes back to his confusing and emotionally taxing relationship with Marianne. Normal People thus calls attention to how hard it can be to turn away from formative relationships, even when it’s clear that doing so might be for the best.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Love, Inexperience, and Emotional Intensity ThemeTracker
Love, Inexperience, and Emotional Intensity Quotes in Normal People
When he talks to Marianne he has a sense of total privacy between them. He could tell her anything about himself, even weird things, and she would never repeat them, he knows that. Being alone with her is like opening a door away from normal life and then closing it behind him. He's not frightened of her, actually she's a pretty relaxed person, but he fears being around her, because of the confusing way he finds himself behaving, the things he says that he would never ordinarily say.
Matter-of-factly he replied: You act different in class, you're not really like that. He seemed to think Marianne had access to a range of different identities, between which she slipped effortlessly. This surprised her, because she usually felt confined inside one single personality, which was always the same regardless of what she did or said. She had tried to be different in the past, as a kind of experiment, but it had never worked. If she was different with Connell, the difference was not happening inside herself, in her personhood, but in between them, in the dynamic.
I like you so much, Marianne said. Connell felt a pleasurable sorrow come over him, which brought him close to tears. Moments of emotional pain arrived like this, meaningless or at least indecipherable. Marianne lived a drastically free life, he could see that. He was trapped by various considerations. He cared what people thought of him. He even cared what Marianne thought, that was obvious now.
Connell is silent again. He leans down and kisses her on the forehead. I would never hurt you, okay? he says. Never. She nods and says nothing. You make me really happy, he says. His hand moves over her hair and he adds: I love you. I'm not just saying that, I really do. Her eyes fill up with tears again and she closes them. Even in memory she will find this moment unbearably intense, and she's aware of this now, while it's happening. She has never believed herself fit to be loved by any person. But now she has a new life, of which this is the first moment, and even after many years have passed she will still think: Yes, that was it, the beginning of my life.
After the fundraiser the other night, Marianne told him this thing about her family. He didn't know what to say. He started telling her that he loved her. It just happened, like drawing your hand back when you touch something hot. She was crying and everything, and he just said it without thinking. Was it true? He didn't know enough to know that. At first he thought it must have been true, since he said it, and why would he lie? But then he remembered he does lie sometimes, without planning to or knowing why. It wasn’t the first time he’d had the urge to tell Marianne that he loved her, whether or not it was true, but it was the first time he’d given in and said it. […] Connell wished he knew how other people conducted their private lives, so that he could copy from example.
He knows she's acting funny and coy because she wants to show him that she's not bitter. He could say: I'm really sorry for what I did to you, Marianne. He always thought, if he did see her again, that's what he would say. Somehow she doesn't seem to admit that possibility, or maybe he's being cowardly, or both.
He got back into bed beside her and kissed her face. She had been sad before, after the film, but now she was happy. It was in Connell's power to make her happy. It was something he could just give to her like money or sex. With other people she seemed so independent and remote, but with Connell she was different, a different person. He was the only one who knew her like that.
She comes to sit down with him and he touches her cheek. He has a terrible sense all of a sudden that he could hit her face, very hard even, and she would just sit there and let him. The idea frightens him so badly that he pulls his chair back and stands up. His hands are shaking. He doesn't know why he thought about it. Maybe he wants to do it. But it makes him feel sick.
Hey, listen. By the way. It looks like I won’t be able to pay rent up here this summer. Marianne looked up from her coffee and said flatly: What?
Yeah, he said. I’m going to have to move out of Niall’s place.
When? said Marianne.
Pretty soon. Next week maybe.
Her face hardened, without displaying any particular emotion. Oh, she said. You’ll be going home, then.
He rubbed at his breastbone then, feeling short of breath. Looks like it, yeah, he said.
[…]
He couldn’t understand how this had happened, how he had let the discussion slip away like this. It was too late to say he wanted to stay with her, that was clear, but when had it become too late? It seemed to have happened immediately.
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?
You know, I didn’t really know what was going on with us last summer, he says. Like, when I had to move home and that. I kind of thought maybe you would let me stay here or something. I don't really know what happened with us in the end.
She feels a sharp pain in her chest and her hand flies to her throat, clutching at nothing.
You told me you wanted us to see other people, she says. I had no idea you wanted to stay here. I thought you were breaking up with me.
He rubs his palm flat against his mouth for a second, and then breathes out.
You didn't say anything about wanting to stay here, she adds. You would have been welcome, obviously. You always were.
Right, okay, he says. Look, I'll head off, then. Have a good night, yeah?
Helen has given Connell a new way to live. It's as if an impossibly heavy lid has been lifted off his emotional life and suddenly he can breathe fresh air. It is physically possible to type and send a message reading: I love you! It had never seemed possible before, not remotely, but in fact it's easy. Of course if someone saw the messages he would be embarrassed, but he knows now that this is a normal kind of embarrassment, […]. He can sit down to dinner with Helen's parents, he can accompany her to her friends' parties, he can tolerate the smiling and the exchange of repetitive conversation. […] When she touches him spontaneously, applying a little pressure to his arm, or even reaching to brush a piece of lint off his collar, he feels a rush of pride, and hopes that people are watching them.
Connell thinks the aspects of himself that are most compatible with Helen are his best aspects: his loyalty, his basically practical outlook, his desire to be thought of as a good guy. With Helen he doesn't feel shameful things, he doesn’t find himself saying weird stuff during sex, he doesn't have that persistent sensation that he belongs nowhere, that he never will belong anywhere. Marianne had a wildness that got into him for a while and made him feel that he was like her, that they had the same unnameable spiritual injury, and that neither of them could ever fit into the world. But he was never damaged like she was. She just made him feel that way.
He probably won’t come back, she thinks. Or he will, differently. What they have now they can never have back again. But for her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They've done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another.
You should go, she says. I’ll always be here. You know that.
