Miscommunication and Assumptions Theme Analysis

In Normal People, Marianne and Connell’s separate insecurities impact and complicate their relationship. Connell, for his part, often worries about fitting in, whether that means protecting his popularity in secondary school or feeling out of place among rich intellectuals at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne, on the other hand, doesn’t care quite as much about fitting in socially, but she does worry about whether or not she’s deserving of kindness and love. Her insecurity in this regard stems from her abusive upbringing, since both her brother and her mother treat her terribly when they think she’s acting superior or “special.” Both Marianne’s and Connell’s insecurities end up putting pressure on their relationship, since they’re each constantly working through their own anxieties and, in turn, looking to each other for some kind of affirmation. To that end, they depend on each other to ease their worries—Marianne looks to Connell as a way of confirming that she’s worthy of love, whereas Connell looks to Marianne for a sense of companionship that makes him feel understood and less alone. This kind of mutual support is all well and good up to a certain point, but it gets tricky because their relationship is constantly shifting. Because they each stake their sense of self on their tumultuous relationship, then, they often plunge into bouts of low self-esteem and insecurity when they’re not on good terms, hinting at the downsides of depending on others for confidence and reassurance.

Connell’s social anxiety often dictates how he leads his personal life, as he interferes with his own happiness by worrying about how other people perceive him. His relationship with Marianne suffers as a result of his insecurity, especially when he prioritizes his reputation in secondary school over his feelings for her. Even though their relationship brings him happiness, he refuses to publicly acknowledge their connection, saying that things might be “awkward” if people knew they were dating. Of course, his excuse that dating publicly would be “awkward” is mainly a weak attempt to avoid saying what he really means, which is that he doesn’t want to face the embarrassment of dating the least popular girl in school. At the same time, though, his use of the word “awkward” actually sheds light on his fear of social discomfort: the idea of being singled out as different or odd terrifies him. Therefore, he’s willing to put his relationship with Marianne in jeopardy, sacrificing his own happiness in order to hold onto his identity as a popular, “normal” boy in school—the kind of person who would never have feelings for somebody who’s considered a social outcast.

Despite his obsession with social status, though, Connell eventually finds out that nobody would have even cared if he and Marianne had dated publicly. As a result, he sees that trying to conceal their relationship was pointless and created unnecessary pain. He also sees that popularity is a petty thing to get hung up on, and though he gets a second chance with Marianne in college, the fact that he let his insecurity about social status overshadow their deep emotional connection ultimately haunts the rest of the relationship.

To that end, one of the reasons that Connell’s selfish behavior in secondary school haunts the relationship is that it seemingly validates Marianne’s fear that she’s “unworthy” of love. Like Connell, she worries about the kind of person she is, but her insecurity mostly has to do with the way she sees herself, not necessarily with how others view her. Because her cold and abusive family members never show her affection or care, she secretly thinks she’s an unlovable person. As such, it’s a big deal when Connell says that he loves her, since it challenges her personal narrative that she’s undeserving of such affection. The attentiveness he shows her is rare in her life, which makes it all the more painful when he goes to such great lengths to hide his love—a gesture that subtly confirms her suspicion that nobody in their right mind would love her in the first place.

Because Marianne and Connell both need each other to affirm different aspects of their identities, by the time they reach college, their relationship has become extremely layered, complex, and hard to navigate. Connell, for one, feels out of place in Dublin, feeling as if his personality is “something external to himself, managed by the opinions of others.” In other words, he feels a lack of control over his own identity, or at least how other people view his identity. His relationship with Marianne thus becomes a safe haven of sorts, since he has always felt—even in Carricklea—that he can be himself around her. Marianne, on the other hand, is popular and well-liked in college, but she still looks to Connell for proof that she’s worthy of love, perhaps because he was the first person to challenge the idea that she’s “unworthy” of kindness and affection. The problem, though, is that relying on each other to constantly reaffirm the things they fear most about themselves is unsustainable—after all, they have a sporadic relationship that is emotionally volatile and undependable. When they’re not on good terms, then, they’re essentially defenseless against their own insecurities.

Although Normal People outlines the impact of Marianne and Connell’s insecurities on their relationship, the novel doesn’t make any kind of sweeping argument against letting such concerns get wrapped up in romance. If anything, the book illustrates how hard it is to avoid turning to loved ones when trying to navigate insecurity. Connell and Marianne might be happier if they were more self-assured about who they are, but the novel suggests that it’s only natural for people to turn to each other for affirmation and support—even if doing so is often messy and emotionally fraught.

Marianne and Connell’s relationship in Normal People is largely defined by a lack of open and effective communication. Because the novel’s structure often alternates between how, exactly, each of them thinks about the same thing, it’s clear to readers that Marianne and Connell are often on the same page, even when they don’t know it. In fact, it’s quite obvious throughout the novel that they love each other, but they spend the majority of their time acting like they’re just friends with a complex history, ultimately avoiding any kind of direct articulation of their true emotions. To that end, even when they do talk about their romantic feelings, their conversations are usually complicated and abstract, as they try to feel each other out and then adjust their own behavior according to those assumptions. For instance, when Connell tells Marianne he’ll have to move out of his apartment for the summer, he intends to ask if he can live with her. Because she assumes he’d never ask such a thing, though, she jumps in and says, “You’ll be going home, then.” Connell takes Marianne’s comment to mean that she doesn’t want him to stay, so he says she’s right: he’s going home. Worse, he suggests that she’ll probably want to see other people, and because she assumes this is really what he wants, she says yes. If either of them simply said what they truly felt, they would avoid terrible heartache. Instead, though, they jump to conclusions and speak indirectly to each other, illustrating how hard it is to have a functioning relationship without establishing strong channels of communication and a sense of emotional transparency.

Most of the problems Connell and Marianne experience in their relationship stem from an overall lack of clarity that forces them to guess how the other person feels. Even at the end of college, after years of loving each other and trying to make things work, they still have trouble making their emotions clear. For instance, they go dancing one night and, even though they both want to kiss each other, they end up spending the night apart and speaking tensely about it the following day. Marianne says she thought Connell left her on the dancefloor because she’d done something to annoy him; she thought he went outside to smoke because he wanted to flirt with someone else. But Connell claims to have asked her to come with him to smoke, saying that he, too, wanted to kiss her. The confusion is the result of simple miscommunication, but the tension that arises from that miscommunication is deeper and more complicated, as Connell uses this opportunity to voice a broader concern: namely, that things would be easier between them if there wasn’t a romantic element to their relationship. The obvious implication here is that he wants to put a decisive end to the romantic side of their bond—and yet, he never fully says that this is what he wants. In fact, when Marianne gets upset and starts to leave, he says he thinks it’s “pretty obvious” that he wants her to stay. “I don’t find it obvious what you want,” Marianne replies, highlighting just how hard it is to read his emotions. They then end up having sex, making it that much harder to discern where their relationship stands.

Of course, the reason it’s so difficult for Marianne and Connell to sense what the other person wants is that neither of them seem to have clarity about their own desires. Instead of levelheadedly deciding what they would want for themselves in an ideal situation, they try to take cues from each other. It’s therefore difficult for them to define the nature of their relationship. In a period during which they’re romantically involved but haven’t actually talked about their feelings, Peggy asks if they’re sleeping together. It’s the first time anyone at college has asked, and they’re both delighted to admit that they are, indeed, sleeping together. But their delight only lasts for a moment, since Peggy then calls them a “couple,” prompting Marianne to point out that they haven’t defined themselves as such. Peggy thinks Marianne means they’re in an open relationship, and because they haven’t technically discussed the matter, they go along with this idea, each of them clearly trying to figure out if an open relationship is what the other one wants (it isn’t). In a way, then, emotional guesswork is a defining element of their relationship, as they hold back from declaring their feelings until they get a sense of what the other person thinks.

Interestingly enough, Marianne and Connell are capable of speaking frankly about their emotions, but only in retrospect. They often rehash past miscommunications, finally admitting what they would have liked to say or do at the time, but they never speak openly in the moment. For example, although Connell fails to ask Marianne if he can live with her for the summer, he later clarifies that he had originally wanted to move in. But he makes this clarification long after the damage has already been done to their relationship. His retrospective honesty just upsets Marianne all over again, since they obviously can’t go back in time and fix the situation. Analyzing their miscommunications in hindsight doesn’t help them, instead opening old wounds and making it that much harder for them to know how to proceed. After all, practicing emotional transparency in the present is much harder than doing it in retrospect, since it requires people to expose their feelings without knowing what will happen. By not communicating effectively in real-time, then, Connell and Marianne remain guarded with each other, thus illustrating that miscommunication often creates difficult emotional barriers between people.