Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Normal People, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love, Inexperience, and Emotional Intensity
Identity, Insecurity, and Social Status
Miscommunication and Assumptions
Money, Class, and Entitlement
Summary
Analysis
Connell sits in the waiting room of the counseling office at Trinity. He fills out a questionnaire that asks questions about his self-confidence, his attitude toward the future, and how often he thinks about killing himself. The other night, he couldn’t even make it from the lounge room in his scholarship housing to the bed—he just lay on the floor all night, thinking about how long it would take to die of dehydration. He wouldn’t mind a death like that, thinking it would be slow and restful. After the counselor calls him into the office, he eventually explains that he started feeling depressed after learning that Rob, his friend from school, recently died by suicide.
Connell has always been prone to feeling a little down. In the beginning of the novel, for example, it’s revealed that he often feels a confusing sense of sadness in random moments, like when he experienced a feeling of melancholy after Marianne said she liked him after they had sex for the first time. Simply put, he’s no stranger to sadness. It’s not all that surprising, then, that he’s now experiencing some depression, especially since Rob recently died, therefore adding an extra emotional burden for him to cope with.
Themes
Connell found out about Rob’s death in January. Since then, everyone has been posting on Facebook about suicide awareness, and Connell’s anxiety—which usually is moderate and manageable—has become hard to deal with. Worse, he feels guilty because he wasn’t there for Rob. The last time Rob reached out was through a Facebook message almost two years ago—he’d seen a picture of Connell next to a girl at a party and had asked if Connell was “riding her.” Connell hadn’t responded. The counselor tells Connell that Rob’s suicide isn’t his fault, but this sentiment doesn’t make him feel any better. The counselor also mentions that she wants to refer Connell to someone who can prescribe medication.
Part of Connell’s depression has to do with the guilt he carries for not being there when Rob needed support. And yet, Connell would have had no way of knowing that Rob needed him in the first place, since Rob’s lewd joke on Facebook certainly didn’t hint at what he was going through emotionally. All the same, Connell beats himself up for failing to respond to Rob’s message. His feelings in this regard are probably tied to his broader sense of guilt for leaving Carricklea to attend Trinity—his friends stayed behind, and now Connell feels like he abandoned them to study at a prestigious school.
Themes
Connell is no longer dating Helen. She came back to Carricklea with him for Rob’s funeral, but her presence didn’t do much to improve his mood. He felt awkward and stilted in his suit, but when he saw Marianne in the church, he forgot himself—he involuntarily said her name aloud, and they hugged each other tightly. Everyone watched them embrace, but Connell didn’t care; eventually they stopped because they knew they couldn’t go on. In bed that night, Helen asked why Connell didn’t introduce her to his friends, but he defended himself by saying he didn’t feel like socializing at a funeral. His comment led to an argument about Marianne and how he didn’t ignore her. He and Helen broke up two weeks later.
Even though Connell’s relationship with Helen was, for the most part, healthy and rewarding, his feelings for Marianne finally become too glaring to ignore—or, at the very least, this is the case for Helen, who can’t simply overlook how much Connell cares about Marianne. Connell, for his part, is too wrapped up in his sadness to care much about his breakup with Helen, despite the fact that he previously thought their relationship brought out the best in him. His split with Helen therefore implies that his passion and history with Marianne is so emotionally charged that it has the power to overshadow other—arguably healthier—relationships.
Themes
The counselor asks Connell if he has anyone he can talk to about his feelings. He mentions Marianne but adds that she’s away for the year. But they still talk. He wonders if Marianne knows the things people have been saying about her, like that there’s naked pictures of her on the internet—he’s not sure if this is true. As Connell talks to the counselor, he reflects on the fact that Marianne is really the only person (other than Niall) with whom he feels connected at Trinity. Weirdly enough, he didn’t feel like he had that much in common with Rob, either, but back then it didn’t matter: in secondary school, everyone knew each other and got along if they were in the same social groups.
Because Marianne is studying abroad, Connell doesn’t have anyone to turn to when he needs emotional support. Instead, he’s on his own at Trinity, which only emphasizes his feeling that he doesn’t fit in among the other students, many of whom come from wealthy, privileged backgrounds that differ greatly from his own. Interestingly enough, Marianne is also isolated, since she’s living far away from her friends, many of whom have turned against her in the aftermath of her breakup with Jamie. The rumors Connell has heard about nude photos of Marianne circulating on the internet confirm just how domineering and coercive Jamie was as a romantic partner—unlike Connell, who assured Marianne that he would delete any nude photos she sent him, Jamie apparently had no problem violating Marianne’s privacy and putting them online (or, at the very least, spreading nasty rumors about those pictures being online).
Themes
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Connell went to a reading a few weeks ago. A student named Sadie had invited him. She asked what he thought afterwards, and he said that he doesn’t really see the point of such events. As he was articulating this thought, the writer himself appeared, and Sadie urged Connell to elaborate. He felt deeply embarrassed, but he soon discovered that the writer felt the same way. He went out with Sadie, the writer, and some other people that night and had a decent time, especially when the writer suggested that his difficulty at Trinity might give him some good material for a first book. He went home that night and looked at notes he’d been making for a story and, despite his deep depression, felt a small sense of happiness.
Even in the depths of a deep depression, Connell manages to find something that brings him a small amount of joy: writing. Although he doesn’t particularly like the social atmosphere surrounding the public reading that Sadie urges him to attend, the mere fact that she invited him in the first place suggests that he’s not as alone and isolated at Trinity as he thought. More importantly, attending the reading inspires him to return to his own writing, which is one of the only ways he has found of expressing and articulating his emotions.
Themes
